Elaine Ball Technical Marketing Ltd (EBTM) has announced that they have been awarded a contract to deliver business and marketing services by Langver Engineering, a global designer and manufacturer of curtain tensioners.
Langver Engineering sells a wide range of curtain tensioners to all major coachbuilders in the UK, as well as reaching a worldwide clientele including Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa and mainland Europe.
Scott Taylor, Director at Langver says, “This award builds on our existing experience to deliver high quality products and customer service globally. By appointing EBTM to address our marketing it allows us to focus on what we are good at and let them get on with increasing our global reach.”
CEO of EBTM, Elaine Ball explains, “We are really excited to be working with Langver. The company’s philosophy for building products of exceptional quality is why they are so successful today. We are on board to help them spread that message globally and let them get on with their real passion, which is designing and producing.”
About Langver
Langver are the leading manufacturers of Curtain Tensioners in the world. They supply products to all the major coachbuilders in the UK, as well as reaching clients in Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa and mainland Europe.
Products vary from a simple bar tensioner (R.50) to their ever popular lever ratchets (R.45) onto worm gear tensioners (WG) and also jacking units (JU.10). Langver take pride in their ratchets being versatile in both the attachment to the trailer and having the correct drive spindle to fit their customer’s needs. They make a variety of fixing plates, levers, latches, spindles and accessories to help the coachbuilder choose the correct tensioner to meet their requirements.
See more at www.langver.com
Contract award announcement
Elaine Ball Technical Marketing Ltd (EBTM) has announced that they have been awarded a contract to deliver business and marketing services by Langver Engineering, a global designer and manufacturer of curtain tensioners.
Langver Engineering sells a wide range of curtain tensioners to all major coachbuilders in the UK, as well as reaching a worldwide clientele including Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa and mainland Europe.
Scott Taylor, Director at Langver says, “This award builds on our existing experience to deliver high quality products and customer service globally. By appointing EBTM to address our marketing it allows us to focus on what we are good at and let them get on with increasing our global reach.”
CEO of EBTM, Elaine Ball explains, “We are really excited to be working with Langver. The company’s philosophy for building products of exceptional quality is why they are so successful today. We are on board to help them spread that message globally and let them get on with their real passion, which is designing and producing.”
About Langver
Langver are the leading manufacturers of Curtain Tensioners in the world. They supply products to all the major coachbuilders in the UK, as well as reaching clients in Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa and mainland Europe.
Products vary from a simple bar tensioner (R.50) to their ever popular lever ratchets (R.45) onto worm gear tensioners (WG) and also jacking units (JU.10). Langver take pride in their ratchets being versatile in both the attachment to the trailer and having the correct drive spindle to fit their customer’s needs. They make a variety of fixing plates, levers, latches, spindles and accessories to help the coachbuilder choose the correct tensioner to meet their requirements.
See more at www.langver.com
Why Industrial Marketers must put some spice into their content!
Ok Doug Kessler, I’m doing this for you! And I’ve stolen your fun ideas! 😉
What do turtles, a bunch of B2B marketers and mojo’s have in common? A conference all about serving the customer and it is not just any customer, it is a B2B customer. God that sounds cheesy!
Look around you! Yes, do it! How many adverts, pieces of content on LinkedIn, Tweets and blogs are just damn right boring? Plenty! I’m at a cross roads in my life…. I’m thirsty for new inspiring information….
Listening to the inspiring Doug Kessler yesterday made me write, and write about how he has inspired me to get my big fat ass in gear! So, today I’m writing. Ok, I don’t have a big fat ass… I actually have quite a nice ass!
Generating content for any audience is difficult, I hate writing, yep I said it, I really do! But if I can’t write, then, how do I expect my engineering audience to do the same. I preach about blogging and social media and getting their information out there. I preach about getting it across ‘simple’… the majority of the time it all falls on deaf ears.
But after reading Mark Schaefer’s “born to blog” and listening to Dougy (sorry Doug, it suites you) I decided to put pen to paper or rather fingers to keyboard.
So, the 5 top tips I stole from Dougy are (for today anyways)
Top 5 tips
Over and out for today!
Are Resellers key for your business?
Part of our remit with a lot of our clients is to help them expand their business globally and for a lot of them, the best route to do this is via resellers and partners. Over the next month or so we will release a few blogs that will help you if you are looking to embark on a reseller network or strengthen your existing one.
The first release looks at the benefit of resellers and how you should go about recruiting them.
Benefits of having resellers:
1. They can be a cost effective way to increase your customer base and expand your growth.
2. Resellers are a good way for businesses to enter new territories
3. Knowledge of the local market
4. Helps to increase your brand awareness
5. Local sales and marketing expertise
6. The resellers will probably already be selling to your target customer base
If you haven’t conducted any research to prove there is a viable market in your desired location, I would strongly consider either conducting some or using your local government agency to help you. In the UK the UKTI is a department that helps companies expand into international markets and you can commission them to undertake research on your behalf and identify potential partners for you.
Things to consider when recruiting a reseller:
Write down what are important factors when looking for a reseller. Some things you might want to consider are
• Their sales and marketing capabilities – are their current efforts good?
• What is the financial stability of their company?
• Past sales performance like?
• Do they have good knowledge of their local market?
• Do they serve your current markets and target customers?
• Good knowledge of your desired markets?
• Knowledge of your technical products?
• Look at their current product portfolio. Do they represent any competitors or is it complimentary equipment?
• Do their values and objectives fit in with your own?
• Look at their current pricing strategy of others equipment. Does it fit in with your desired model?
In our next blog we will look at reseller agreements and what you should think about including.
Further Reading
Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. Elaine Ball Technical Marketing (EBTM) Ltd has won a sizeable contract with world leaders in professional laser rangefinders; Laser Technology, Inc., (LTI) headquartered in Colorado, USA.
EBTM have been in discussions with LTI for some time on launching a new innovative product, which is currently marked as “TOP SECRET” and will be unveiled for the first time at the Intergeo Conference, Germany 15 – 17th September 2015.
The contract involves the launch of this new product through Europe and has many initiatives which include setting up a dedicated evolving website, VIP marketing campaigns, a mocked up crime scene and many more exciting promotions.
During the next eight weeks, parts of the TOP SECRET website will unveil certain features and benefits of the mystery product being launched at Intergeo.
Nick Ackerson, Marketing Director of Laser Technology quotes, “We are very excited and honored to be working with a high caliber technical marketer in the UK, Elaine Ball Technical Marketing, for the European release of a very exciting, new and certainly breakthrough product for the mapping and GIS markets.”
Marketing Communications Director of EBTM Amanda Finn explains “the key for a successful marketing campaign is getting the foundations right from the beginning. We work with our dedicated associates who provide exceptional quality and skill.
Our overall goal at EBTM is to make sure our clients are ahead of the marketing game, with the outcome of increasing sales! This campaign is very exciting and we have really put the ‘creative juices’ to test!”
For further information contact Amanda Finn, Marketing Communications Director at EBTM on Amanda@elaineball.co.uk or Paul Adkins, Marketing Communications Manager at Laser Technology, Inc. on padkins@lasertech.com.
About
Elaine Ball Technical Marketing (EBTM) Ltd is a professional and devoted International Technical Marketing Consultancy, specialising in helping B2B companies grow and become profitable through focused strategic marketing, business development, marketing planning and marketing implementation.
With over 30 years collective experience, EBTM expertise’s lie within the Geospatial, Laser Scanning, Survey, Mobile Mapping, Oil & Gas, Offshore, DP, Dynamic Positioning, UAV, Mining and Quarry sectors.
EBTM simplifies the marketing process, we remove marketing jargon and replace it with easy to understand terms, which in turn nurtures learning, understanding and success.
EBTM have 2 divisions: Marketing Consultancy and Marketing & Business Development Training.
The Marketing Consultancy arm of EBTM is split into 2 sections: 1). Strategy day work (focused on ‘where to go’): facilitation and development. 2). Marketing planning (taking the strategy and turning it into a marketing plan) 3). Marketing Implementation; actually doing the execution. Being your marketing department.
Contact details
Yesterday, EBTM launched a TwitterChat to all exhibitors (who are on Twitter) at Geobusiness 2015. The topic “Let’s get the buzz started for Geobusiness 2015”.
Tweeters replied with answers A1. A2 and A3.
23 Users took part
Most influential & engaging users were
Topcon had the most re-tweets with reference to their drinks evening. My question would be ‘what is the impact on your Google analytics? And did you attract more people to your drinks party?
Same question to SEEABLE, Pixalytics and Co-Ordinated Surveys? Check your Google analytics and see what has happened. Any changes?
So, now what? TwitterChat is all about sharing and taking about something you all have in common. The aim is to boost brand awareness for you and Geobusiness. Companies can then take it form here and do TwitterChats related to their own products usability, etc.
From the success of our first Twitter Chat (trial) talking about ‘what you will be showcasing at Geobusiness 2015’, we at @EBTMarketing have decided to launch a twitter chat on Thursday 21st May at 4pm GMT prior to the show starting on Tuesday 27th May. Why? To get the buzz going!!
We will post 3 questions over the course of 30mins on @EBTMarketing as follows at 4pm on Thurs 21st May
Q1. What are you showcasing at Geobusiness?
Q2. What do you expect to get out of Geobusiness?
Q3. How will you know if GeoBusiness is successful?
When you answer any question, please add A1, A2 and A3 to represent questions Q1, Q2 and Q3. For example:
A1. Awaken your inner GIS solutions with @LaserTechPro @Geobusiness. Booth L28
A2. Meet surveyors who could use our kit #EBTMgeo @EBTMarketing @Geobusiness
A3. We will have secured five meetings at the end of the show #EBTMgeo
You can comment and share as much information as you wish.
NOTE: Each answer must contain hashtag #EBTMgeo
WHY? So we can track the progress and give you a report at the end! See previous TwitterChat
Why key words? When ‘people’ search for a specific word or phrase in Twitter, it will bring up ‘all’ the relevant information related to that keyword.
Elaine Ball Technical Marketing (EBTM) Ltd, England – EBTM a leading consultancy in technical marketing for the Geospatial, Mining and Offshore Industries globally, has won a major contract with Trimble Geospatial, Westminster, CO, USA.
EBTM will be delivering strategic and marketing workshops to Trimble’s global dealer network on behalf of Trimble’s Geospatial division. The workshops involve reviewing strategic roads maps of dealers, current marketing strategy, what works and what does not and leaving them with key tasks to implement to help them strengthen their marketing efforts of Trimble related products. Elaine and her team of marketing experts can then go onto assist in marketing support and implementation at the request of the dealer.
Unfortunately in today’s competitive marketing place, there is much more noise and with the ever increasing marketing platforms, such as Social Media and with the Internet set to grow by 500% by 2020, companies need to be smarter and savvy when it comes to activity. Companies need to be confident they are selecting the right platforms to focus their marketing efforts and ensure their spend is generating the most return.
It’s a struggle for Marketing and sales departments as they have to try and keep up to date with the latest thinking and techniques, it can be very tiring. EBTM make sure their clients and followers have access to the latest marketing techniques for their industry.
EBTM can help businesses review their strategic efforts right through to planning and implementation, which helps focus the business owner or manager on the task at hand that will develop the company into a more focused and profitable business within their sector.
During 2014, EBTM carried out a pilot program with Trimble, assessing three key dealers within Belgium, UK and South Africa.
Oliver Brooks, Managing Director at KOREC UK
“Elaine recently held a strategy day for us, and what really differentiated it from other similar days we’ve done was her comprehensive industry knowledge and relevant professional experience. That really helped her credibility and encouraged openness from all participants resulting in plenty of sound ideas which will be developed and implemented.”
Marianne Couderé, C.E.O. Couderé, Geo Service , 4C Grid bvba
“Elaine is a highly motivated and driven manager and acts in a structured way with her customer and the team. She starts her projects well prepared, keeps tracks of timing and builds on positivity and trust. She is result driven and her own business experience as a C-level helps the C-customer to quickly work on the real pain points. Her experience has a real added value and works highly inspirational. In a scientific and technical environment she manages to keep the team motivated and participative on the project and has a good follow up concept. I would highly recommend her services.”
Elaine Ball comments “This is an amazing opportunity with Trimble! So many companies get lost in the product or service offering, we help develop skills in-house making the businesses self-sufficient, the Trimble contract is no exception”
The overall aim is to improve marketing throughout Trimble and enhance the company’s profits globally. For further information see www.elaineball.co.uk
About Trimble
Trimble applies technology to make field and mobile workers in businesses and government significantly more productive. Solutions are focused on applications requiring position or location—including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. In addition to utilizing positioning technologies, such as GPS, lasers and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user and to ensure a tight coupling of the field and the back office. Founded in 1978, Trimble is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.
About EBTM
Elaine Ball Technical Marketing (EBTM) Ltd is a professional and devoted International Technical Marketing Consultancy, specialising in helping B2B companies grow and become profitable through focused strategic marketing, business development, marketing planning and marketing implementation.
With over 30 years collective experience, EBTM expertise’s lie within the Geospatial, Laser Scanning, Survey, Mobile Mapping, Oil & Gas, Offshore, DP, Dynamic Positioning, UAV, Mining and Quarry sectors.
EBTM simplifies the marketing process, we remove marketing jargon and replace it with easy to understand terms, which in turn nurtures learning, understanding and success.
EBTM have 2 divisions: Marketing Consultancy and Marketing & Business Development Training.
The Marketing Consultancy arm of EBTM is split into 2 sections: 1). Strategy day work (focused on ‘where to go’): facilitation and development. 2). Marketing planning (taking the strategy and turning it into a marketing plan) 3). Marketing Implementation; actually doing the execution and becoming your marketing tea
Shooting Videos
Organisation is key
Sitting in Craiglash quarry, in the highlands of Scotland in a pimped up high viz van watching our video crew setting up for a shoot is somewhat inspiring. The weather, can you believe it, is actually sunny with virtually no wind! Perfect weather to showcase the new mobile mapping system from SABRE Survey, based at Brathens Business Park near Banchory, Scotland.
The Set up – Shooting Videos
The start of the shoot was somewhat cumbersome, with access to the quarry being a little difficult, due to us forgetting our high viz jackets and hard hats. After 20mins, we managed to find some kit. Next, was to find a location that looked great! Made the pick up truck stand out with its tail showing, logos and all.
Watching Matt and Bethany maneuver their tripods and huge cameras around the cobbled and uneven terrain, looking for the best position for their shot. Precision is somewhat important for this pair, and when you are working with a client, it’s important to have the right people delivering the best service possible!
Craiglash Quarry
Getting it right – Shooting Videos
Watching from the comforts of my warm van (and yes, it was chilly but comfortable) its amazing watching the video crew start and stop the shots, reverse the van, drive back and forth, all to make the shot look great! However, very time consuming
There is a lot of preparation that goes into a video shoot even before we even say the words “ACTION!” First you must prepare a shooting script and any audio that will accompany the video, then you find the right locations to shoot and then right videography equipment and then the organization of the client, who is not familiar with working with video nor doing an interview! Believe me, doing the video shots for our website were very uncomfortable and somewhat time consuming! I have no idea how models or TV presenters do it!
Perfect shots, hidden secrets & boys toys
One of the best shots, is Matt hiding in between two stockpiles, neatly hidden to focus in on one perfect angle. This video is going to be interesting!
Luckily dust isn’t a pain today, the conditions for a perfect video have to be ‘some’ cloud (no direct sunlight), low wind and no dust. Something you would not expect in a quarry.
The van lights flicker with the beacon warning the huge VOLVO drivers zooming around the quarry, playing in their back hoes or to me, diggers that little old us are trying to shoot the number one film of the decade. Ok Ball, that’s a bit extravagant, but it sounds good ah!
Big boys play ground
What surprises me is the size of the trucks and they don’t drive slow either! Handbrake turns going on, it’s a big boys playground!
It’s actually an occupational hazard shooting video in a working quarry!
Complications
As the day progresses, dust does become an issue, yep, its still sunny and some what hot in an aggregate quarry. Reflection from the floor is hitting me square in the eyes, nor do I have my sun glasses with me! Silly mistake.
What is interesting is the crew are using ‘light reflectors’ to actually increase the light on the mobile mapper, thus highlighting key features of the product.
Can you image if it was ‘raining cats and dogs’ as we say in Britain. Our brave video crew has flown up from London to carry out this video shoot.
Matt hiding in the stock piles
Finding the right team – Shootiing Videos
As I mentioned above, getting the right video team is important especially if you want a job doing right! I’ve used several other companies in the past and using someone you trust and who knows how you work is key for success. Cost can be an issue especially if we have to fly to a desired location. Videos can cost anywhere from £1k to £10K GBP.
Flying the Sky Horse UAV
However, with video on the up, and with the social channels such as Twitter and Facebook introducing their own native video to challenge the likes of YouTube, it’s becoming more and more important for technical type companies working within Mining, Geospatial and Offshore industries to have videos available for their clients.
The cons
Filtering through the hundreds of video production companies is hard work but when you find the right one, it’s like glove to hand! Are they willing to try new things? Be flexible for you and the client? Creative?
You will lose out to your competition in this game if you don’t use such mediums to get your messages across! Customers want access to information easily and without effort! We have well rehearsed the agenda for today’s shoot, making sure we get all the key elements into the picture.
As I mentioned earlier, video is important for Mining, Geospatial and Offshore industries. The equipment being sold and used is somewhat technical and is used in harsh conditions therefore needs to be carefully choreographed, making sure the message is pin pointed! As they say “A picture is worth a thousands words”- think how many a video is worth then!
Website Content
During my trip to Social Media Marketing World in San Diego last week, Mark Schaefer, one of the worlds top Marketing Gurus has done some extensive research on content generation. He has predicted that the Internet is set to grow by over 500% by 2020. Oh boy!
So, for example; if we are posting 1 blog per month (12 blogs per year) x 500% = 72 blogs per year MORE. If our competitors x 4 (for example) post 72 per year each, that’s 288 content posts per year just from competitors. Now think about all the noise on LinkedIn with 5 companies talking about the same thing as well as all the other noise! Ouch!
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO STAND OUT IN THE CROWD? What are you going to do about it, so people can find you?
Being found and heard!
How are you going to be heard, the more content out there, the more noise and the less chance your content is going to get seen. It’s also worth pointing out that due to the amount of content, you are not only competing with other similar companies and competitors but friends and family too. That’s a lot of noise and information to get through!
Before I begin, Starting April 21, Google will be expanding their use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. So what does this mean? Well it means if your website is not ‘mobile’ friendly, it will have an impact on the ‘search results’ reducing the chance of your website being found.
Elaine with Mark Schaefer
10 Top Tips
Firstly, you need to ask yourself
What am I trying to achieve with my content? Eg. Educate the market on the latest survey equipment, which in turn shows the world (or your geographical market space) we are the thought leaders? Communicate our offering to tell people we are open for business?
What does my content have to do to reach my outcome? For example; My outcome is to educate the market, be that thought leader so people will sign up and buy my products? My content has to take them through a journey, educating them on the way through, so they understand why they need our survey equipment.
Secondly, read this blog post by Sales Guru Marcus Sheridan before reading the rest of this post (there is a method in my madness;)
Content ‘rich’ text. Tell people the story from start to finish. Your products are one part of the overall process (when we look at the bigger picture). When focused on one part, we don’t understand why we need it. Explaining in stories the process will educate the audience, making it easier for them to understand and buy. As yourself “Is our sales process too complicated? Can we make it more simple?”
Put yourself in your clients shoes!
When writing a post, blog, news article, make it human, make your personality stand out! Remember, you are trying to take the potential client through a journey. Those who understand the journey can move on to more relevant posts. Finally measure the posts!
With great content, ask yourself “does it give my audience actions?” So for example, this content is giving you plenty of actions to deal with! Things that are important for their success!
Customer feedback, this is one area many companies need to address and become stronger in. Ask your clients for feedback! What is important to your customer base? If you were to buy our survey equipment, what information do you need to make that decision? 74% of buyers have done their research before they contact you.
Buzzsumo.com have analysed over 100 million articles in the past 8 months. Buzzsumo had some questions:
What types of emotions did the most popular articles raise?
The stats show the following:
Share who the competitors are
This will make you cringe, however its something to consider. If you are in a niche market ie. UAV, Mobile Mapping etc, anyone who is actually doing their ‘homework’ will know about their competitors. The content is visible in news articels and searches online. Marcus Sheridan owns The Sales Lion. He is also the owner of a very successful swimming pool company in the US. He makes is very clear: If someone is seriously looking at your products, type of equipment to solve a problem, the potential client has already done their homework! So if 74% of your audience have done its homework already, then why not explain in your own terms what makes you stand out from your competitors, what are good at? What are the differences in your own words! Make it easy for the client to see you as the thought leader, the expert in the field. Don’t leave it up to ‘perceptions’.
Content that moves. People share content if it has an effect on them! The more they share, the more Google likes you and the more visible you become. So, ask yourself the following questions (when you share something):
Understanding why someone ‘shares’ your content will open up how you can tweak your current content to be more appealing to your audience! When you get this right, then you can use it to your advantage! Ie. ‘sign up today and receive ‘exclusive’ content or something similar.
‘Comments’ section on the blog
If you haven’t got a blog, get one. If you haven’t got a comments sections, add one! Then invite people to comment. Even more so, ask the industry experts to comment. If one person comments it will lead to other people commenting!
Pop ups. Yes, pop ups. Statistical Research Inc has shown that pop up (even though I hate them with a passion) are 49% more noticeable and over 70% successful. Its just a split second, but you see the brand. My suggestion to you is test them out and see what happens. For further insights and clarity, see Jay Bear’s article “Pop-up ads necessary evil or just evil”
I suggest using pop ups for gathering email addresses and if you do wish to use them, here are some tips:
Another cool option is to have a pop up on the 404 Error pages! Yes, why not! You could add something like “whoops, found a problem, drop us your email and we can keep you posted on news updates released one per month”
The buying process
According to Forrester Research Inc, 74% of the buying process has been done before they enquire about your product or service!
The key is to be focused with your content on specific segments, this is where blogging comes in. So, for example; Survey tools for land surveyors in Africa. Focus it purely on the Land Surveyors with terminology related to that industry. Its focused and more relevant thus helping ‘searches’ and google find you! Simple!
Re-purpose & Revive content. Review the most popular blog posts and have a think about reviving them into a new blog post, or focusing in on one particular part of an old blog post. If a particular blog has been shared, tweeted, commented on etc (has been popular), re-use it! Get it back out there in the market! With popular posts, I suggest you turn them into podcasts and or videos!
Best time to post. Reviewing Google Analytics, what is the best content and what day is it mostly read. I suggest you do some tests on days and times esp with certain pieces of information. When you have this information, start posting on these certain times. However, the key here is to ‘test’!
Measure
Using Google Analytics/ click on ‘behaviors’ (left hand column) and click on ‘Landing Pages’. Here you can view which of your pages is getting the best sessions, time on page. When you start to analyze this data, you can start to produce more of the same type of content! The more of the same type of content will give you more visitors.
Measure
Lastly
For pages that are not working ie. not getting anyone on, get rid of them! Yes, remove from the site! Why fill the website with the wrong content, it doesn’t make sense. It just clutters the site.
Case Study
Now, some of you are wine lovers! Mark Schaefer helped his dear friend out in France. An English guy decided to ship his English family off to the lovely wine country to be wine makers. As you can imagine, wine making is an extremely competitive business! He blogged about failure, his failure. He blogged about the grape machine and what it did!
His story is amazing!
Taking the rules out of this blog post, the company flourished and is one of the most successful wine making businesses in France today. It took him two years of very hard work, but it worked!
Check out his website – You will notice some of the things I’ve discussed in this blog. While I know its wine, the concepts are the same. He has made this wine business into something extremely unique. “What about the competition? The big players in the market?” They were asleep!
References