Should You Trade the Trade Show for Your Own Event?

This idea might be a wiener: hosting a solo exhibition or road show



We’re busy making final preparations for two big trade shows this month involving our clients. It’s exciting, because trade shows still offer a great marketing stage for manufacturing and other B2B companies.

However, advancements of the Digital Age present new opportunities to connect directly with customers at a fraction of the cost. It’s now more affordable than ever to drive the necessary publicity to host your own successful event.

Open houses, road shows and other self-styled exhibitions have distinct advantages:

• Focus – Without the distractions, noise and competition of a typical trade show, you have the captive attention of your guests.
• Depth – As the exclusive presenter, you have the floor, allowing for detailed presentations tailored to specific needs, rather than a quick, condensed overview at a trade show booth.
• Diversity – Your company likely serves more than one market. Your event can appeal to all your customers – demonstrating the full array of products, services and expertise you offer.

Realizing these advantages, however, isn’t necessarily easy. Even more so than for a trade show, you must attract the audience to make it all worth your while. All the strategic planning, preshow promotional emails, landing pages, media kits, etc., become even more important.

For example, these events typically target a certain geographical area, making local newspapers a critical communication channel. To gain national attention, many companies have taken their shows on the road. Consider the classic Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Or General Electric Co.’s mobile truck, a great success when it launched the company’s new FlexEfficiency 60 power generation technology.

With the right preparation and publicity, starring in your own show can be a cost-effective and powerful way to interact with customers face-to-face and deliver an unforgettable brand experience.

4 Steps to a Better Sales & Marketing Relationship

So maybe you’re investing in a new brand position. Or you’re rolling out a new ad campaign. Or launching a new website.

In any of these processes, there’s one audience you should never overlook (besides your customers): your salespeople.

Marketing and messaging, after all, is meant to set the stage for easier and more effective selling. Plus, your sales team is often the main customer touch point, making it especially important that they’re on the same page as management regarding your brand and how to portray it.

That’s why it’s essential to incorporate sales in the branding process from the very beginning. For maximum ROI – and the most consistent and rewarding experience for your customers – your people must be empowered to take advantage of all your marketing efforts daily and consistently.

Here are four steps to getting your sales team properly involved.

• Kick it off. Sit down with the team to explore target customers’ situations and hot-button issues, as well as the sales team’s current use of marketing messages and materials. Find areas of improvement or confusion.
• Develop messaging. Apply key elements of the brand to craft specific messaging that meets sales’ unique challenges. Fill in missing pieces and ensure consistency across all messaging.
• Deploy it. Review new messages with the staff and practice use in common sales scenarios.
• Follow up. Review successful sales interactions that leveraged the messaging and address evolving issues.

Equipping your sales team with consistent, brand-based messaging will create the best sales experience for both your company and your customers, ensuring better relationships and results. So what are you waiting for? Plan a sales meeting today!

3 Steps to Telling Your Story

It’s not enough, we often say, to have a competitive edge. You’ve got to exploit your advantage at every opportunity.

In other words, tell your story, as this BizTimes column puts it. And there’s no more powerful or cost-effective way to do that than through strategic public and media relations.

Columnist Cary Silverstein consulted our own Mary Scheibel for some advice on promoting a competitive advantage through the media. It boils down to three basic steps:

1. Identify the story you want to tell and the audiences you need to reach, based on your business goals and your value proposition.
2. Clearly, consistently share relevant case studies, news, knowledge, etc. with media read by your target audiences. Don’t forget emerging online channels, of course.
3. Whenever you get a win, give your customers and prospects every opportunity to see it. Email a link, put it in a status update, buy reprints for sales calls and so on.

If you hadn’t noticed, we’re practicing a little of #3 with this blog post.

OK, your turn. No time like the present. Go tweet your latest success or something.

Key Considerations for Your Company Facebook Page

Should your business be on facebook?

Yes. With more than 300 million users across all demographics, you shouldn’t ignore this channel.

However, what you do with your facebook page is a different matter. Many companies may be unsure how to proceed in this huge but still evolving arena.

Maybe start by consulting this helpful primer on facebook pages for small businesses in The New York Times (sign-in required). There are some good links to other resources there, so by all means, read the article when you have time (away from facebook).

In the meantime, some key takeaways:

• Start with strategy. Yes, you should be on facebook. No, you should not be aimlessly wasting time. However, there’s a learning curve involved. So identify objectives, and start experimenting now with ways to achieve them.
• Show, don’t sell. People use facebook to interact, not to buy things. They’re interested in the personality of your business, so give them that experience on your page—not a bunch of pushy hype.
• Stay up to date. Regular doses of current and relevant news, events and commentary keep visitors returning.
• Don’t expect too much. Since facebook is about relationships, and relationships take time to develop, maintaining a great page won’t do your salespeople’s job for them.
  

An Old-School Social Media Success

Using social media can help you achieve lots of big goals—gaining recognition as a thought leader, generating leads, pumping up sales, etc.

But just as often, success in social media is simply about finding more efficient, effective ways to solve problems and increase customer satisfaction.

Take this Pitney Bowes example we just read about.

The postage meter people decided that maybe they were spending too much time and money on customer support phone calls. So they created an online user forum where customers could pose and answer each other’s questions, moderated by the company.

With the help of customers’ diverse content input—kind of a crowdsourced FAQ—Pitney Bowes’ forum quickly delivered robust answers to many of the most common questions that people used to call the hotline for. In the process, they’re saving the company money and customers lots of stressful time on the phone.

And maybe the most important (and reassuring) lesson here is that they did it without using the latest and greatest platforms. No Twitter, no Facebook, no StumbleUpon—just a clear objective and good ol’ forum, with great results.

Let’s Hear It for U.S. Manufacturing

It’s nice to see someone sticking up for U.S. manufacturing, for a change. Example: Rockwell Automation Inc. chairman and chief executive officer Keith Nosbusch, has been visible and vocal lately advocating for more investment in the sector.

"U.S. manufacturers absolutely must have innovative energy-efficient and productivity-enhancing technology to be competitive," he told a press briefing last week at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The good news is that many manufacturers are applying these lean technologies. The not-so-good news: Too few people are aware of this success.

That’s why it’s refreshing to hear an industry leader like Nosbusch speaking out. We’ve talked a lot in this space about the need for manufacturers to market their individual companies with differentiating brands. Today, the need for more powerful communications may be equally important for the manufacturing sector as a whole.

After all, despite the tough times and fierce overseas competition, manufacturing remains a vital backbone of the U.S. economy. This sector deserves and needs support, and manufacturers should not and cannot allow themselves o be overlooked.

Kudos to Nosbusch for putting himself out there on this front. Now, are there any other manufacturing leaders ready to lend their voices?

Another One of Those Incremental Improvements That Keep Google Ahead

Here’s something that shouldn’t surprise you: Google just keeps getting smarter.

Last week, the Internet frontrunner announced changes that will enhance its contextual targeting capabilities.

Contextual ads show up on pages of Google publishing partners. These AdSense ads are supposed to be relevant to various keywords on a given page. (Say you load a story about increasing new home construction. You’re likely to see an ad from a homebuilder.) When it works, it’s your typical, intuitive, don’t-even-realize-it’s-happening Google experience.

Trouble is, sometimes Google’s contextual targeting hasn’t worked quite right. Like when an ad for cheap airline tickets shows up on a page about a plane crash. Here’s an amusing slideshow of some of the most egregious examples of contextual targeting mishaps.

The changes Google announced this week should cut down on these embarrassing exceptions—once again keeping Google ahead of the pack in terms of creating an ever smoother, more customized Internet that works better for advertisers and users alike.

That’s not only good news for you if you’re an advertiser. It’s also a good example. The lesson? Never stop improving. The folks at Google never do, and that’s one of the ways they maintain a competitive edge.

Branding is back, baby!

For many B2B companies, the whole idea of brand building has taken a back seat in today’s economy. Everybody’s cautious with their investments, limiting their spending to price promotions and the like.

It’s understandable, but it’s also ill-advised. Why? Because in a shrinking market, you have to aggressively protect and grow your share. And you can’t do that by focusing on your products and services alone. Doing so only plays into the trap of commoditization.

We think it’s time to give brand building a little love again. Good thing we have this powerful tool nowadays that can help you build your brand directly and cost-effectively with customers. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s called social media.

Check out this decent primer in The New York Times on managing your reputation online (or, in other words, building brand equity).

Opportunities abound to connect with customers, solve their problems, anticipate new ones and cultivate trust every step of the way—exactly the vibe customers are seeking in these uncertain times. Social media is an excellent path to reinforce your brand and build the confidence your customers need to have for you to win their business. Yes, branding is back, baby! It’s online, it’s every day, and it’s here to stay.

As Social Media’s Status Rises, Don’t Ignore the ‘Why’

In an interesting if unsurprising development, BtoB has released a study declaring that “Social media use soars among b-to-b marketers.”

Indeed, we’re all atwitter about the interactive, community-building possibilities. And as we’ve said before here, here and here, you should be experimenting in social media.

But at the same time, a word of caution. We’re talking about experimenting here. And experiments sometimes fail. As marketers, we can’t let ourselves get so tangled up in social media excitement that we don’t recognize when our efforts aren’t achieving any marketing objectives.

For example, as one BtoB commenter points out, it’s nice that we marketers are flocking to social media, but we should also consider whether our target audience in any given case is active in these emerging channels. If not, why waste the time?

So while we’re listening and chiming in online, we also should be thinking about how social media dialogs fit with our goals and strategy. Shooting for a quota of sales leads? Just trying to stay on top of what customers care about? We can’t expect too much from our Tweets, replies, status updates, etc. But we should expect something.
In social media, at a minimum, we need some idea what we’re getting into—and what we’re trying to get out of it.

Data show B2B marketers are active on social networks. Are you?

A follow-up to an earlier post about social media and other Web 2.0 tools, and why it’s important for b2b marketers to be testing those waters.

Some new data from Forrester Research shows that B2B buyers have very high social participation, according to a new post on Forrester’s blog.

Key quote from that entry:

“What does this mean for you? If you're a B2B marketer and you're not using social technologies in your marketing, it means you're late.”

So, how do you catch up?

For starters, as we’ve said before, join the conversation. And it is a conversation—not a one-way communication where a hard sell is appropriate or effective.

Social networks are dynamic communities. You can and should help shape the discussions, but you can’t completely direct them. For example, Forrester recommends facilitating the sharing of technical information related to your products and services among customers.

This freer-flowing dialog can foster a closer connection to and a better understanding of your customers than was ever possible without the Internet.

There’s Room to Grow in the Global Economy

Wisconsin manufacturers may be lagging the world’s best companies in doing the things they need to do to thrive in the 21st century.

But therein lies opportunity.

Take, for example, expanding overseas operations. That’s one area for improvement cited in the “Next Generation Manufacturing Study,” an extensive new survey released by the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

The study shows, as highlighted by The Business Journal of Milwaukee, that many Wiscoinsin companies simply aren’t yet doing much international business. Just 7 percent of the 500-plus firms in the survey reported non-U.S. sales growth of 51 percent or higher. Nearly two-thirds of (63 percent) said that they have no sales or distribution facilities beyond the United States.

So there’s plenty of room to grow globally for Wisconsin manufacturers. “Global engagement” is one of the six key tenets of so-called Next Generation Manufacturing, a set of forward-looking strategies to drive growth and profitability in the 21st century (per the WMEP).

Of course, international business is rife with challenges. Whether from an operations or a marketing communications perspective, success overseas takes a strong commitment to consistency, balanced with flexibility for local customization. You’ve got to make the effort to understand and respond to what customers really want in each market.

That’s a tall task to undertake on a limited budget, but a few good strategic alliances can help. For example, our agency helps ensure consistent, relevant messaging around the world for global clients through IPREX, one of the world’s largest networks of independent public relations agencies. Read more about our relationship with IPREX.

In the meantime, read the full WMEP report for many more fascinating insights on Wisconsin manufacturing. An executive summary and the full report are available for download at WMEP’s website.

Expanding Your Reach through Strategic Alliances

Is it better to have actual facilities in far-flung places, or just friends there?

For many companies, there’s no debate. Owning bricks and mortar in foreign lands just isn’t feasible. That’s probably never been truer than in this tenuous economy and tight credit market. Nevertheless, for more and more businesses, having a global presence is still essential.

The good news is that there’s a way to expand your reach without taking huge risks in terms of capital and credit: through well-crafted strategic alliances. That’s what many of our international clients have done. And it’s what we’re doing, too.

Last week, I attended the annual conference (in Boston, Mass.) of IPREX, one of the world’s largest networks of independent public relations agencies. IPREX puts us in a valuable partnership with reliable, accountable PR teams on the ground all over the world. So we have immediate access to cultural knowledge and communications expertise—whenever and wherever our international clients are doing business.

We not only support each other’s communications programs. We stretch our thinking, we provide each other access to both geographic and market-specific competencies, and we share best practices with a diverse group of professionals. It’s a far cry from the “not invented here” mentality or partisan politics that too often put individual success and the greater good at odds.

So perhaps it’s time to think differently about your competitors. Beneath the surface, you might just find a strategic ally and a company whose market and niche expertise may actually complement yours.

In an increasingly sophisticated, volatile and interconnected global marketplace, you might say that’s the best of one world.

Walking the Talk of Brand Evolution

We talked a couple of weeks ago about the importance of evolving your brand. But if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

Well, it’s like home maintenance. Better to reinforce the roof before it caves in. Or think of it like a romance: You’ve got to keep it fresh.

Never get too comfortable with your brand, because the marketplace in which your brand lives is always changing—and besides, there’s always room for improvement. We aren’t just saying that. Right now, we’re launching a new Scheibel Halaska website, with an updated, refocused brand message.

We took some time to look deeper into what our clients care about and what we do that accelerates their success. That gave rise to a new tagline and a complete redesign of InsideSH.com.

The new site was a long time coming … but it won’t be long before you see more changes. That’s because we’re determined to keep our public face lively and up to date, just as we’re working every day to keep our services relevant and valuable to our clients. After all, it’s what we tell our clients (and blog readers) to do all the time.

How Will the Harley Brand Rumble on?

Right now in our hometown of Milwaukee, Harley-Davidson is throwing itself a multiday party for its 105th anniversary. Hog lovers from around the world are rumbling into town for a full weekend of, well, let’s just say “fun.”

Good for Harley to put on a show for its loyal customers, even in a slow economy when sales are down. However, those declining numbers are no doubt a concern to Harley’s leadership—as are the numbers regarding its aging customer demographics.

As we look around, it’s easy to see that Harley’s base is dominated by older generations. And that has us wondering aloud about how this iconic brand can re-energize itself in the 21st century. How do you update a brand without forsaking its storied tradition? Here’s a look at some of the ways Harley is trying to strike that balance.

This historic company is far from being history. But while Harley searches for the path forward, let it be a reminder to you—no matter what game you’re in—that the marketplace is always changing. And brands that aren’t advancing with it can quickly find themselves left behind. Now more than ever, brands must continue evolving to survive.

Sustainability Efforts Must Come before Marketing Hype

The current issue of Advertising Age has an interesting feature about the rise of sustainability officers and their relationship to marketing.

“So goes the evolving dance between sustainability and marketing, as chief sustainability officers become as prevalent as chief marketing officers in Fortune 500 companies. Although more marketers are striving to act and look green, their sustainability officers seldom come up from the marketing side.”

And why don’t they come from the marketing side? Because the more successful eco-friendly efforts start from the grass roots. They fully integrate the spirit of sustainability into the rest of a business.

To illustrate this point, the AdAge piece goes on to highlight the sustainability initiatives of Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble and other big players. These companies don’t have massive “sustainability departments,” just leaders in charge of making things greener across their companies.

If your organization isn’t big enough to justify hiring a sustainability officer, a commitment to sustainability can still be carried through. But either way, green should not be a figment of marketing imagination.

That’s especially true for companies taking environmentally focused products to market (like several of our clients). As we pointed out back around Earth Day, the marketplace of green claims is getting pretty noisy. Audiences are starting to tune it all out. So if you’re selling green, you have to walk that talk.

Besides, there may be an even better reason for going greener throughout your company. Potential business benefits such as increased energy efficiency will likely have a far more positive impact on the Earth and your bottom line than any green marketing claim ever will.

Even CPAs Agree: Marketing Investments Still Make Good Business Sense

CPAs can be very stingy people—even more so when the economic seas are churning, as they are now.

But even some of the most conservative accountants recognize that now isn’t the time to shut down marketing efforts. Here’s an article from a firm called Vrakas/Blum suggesting that this is a critical time to invest in your future through marketing.

Why? For the same reason it’s good to invest in quality stocks when the market is down: The bull will be back, and you’ll be able to take advantage. Right now, while many of your competitors are cutting back on marketing, it’s a great opportunity for you to gain an edge. When the economy picks up again, you’ll be better positioned to pounce on new business.

Now, we don’t recommend throwing more money around indiscriminately (although we’d sure benefit from that, if you insist). You should invest as wisely as possible. The Vrakas/Blum article offers four tips to approach marketing in a tough economy. (Never mind that the author actually promises six suggestions.)

For further reading, you can review a similarly helpful post we offered back in February with five tips on marketing during the downturn.

Ramp up Your Customer Retention Efforts

Is customer service dead? You’d better hope not.

Customer service is, of course, the key to satisfied customers. Scratch that—not just satisfied, but loyal customers.

Even in bullish economic times, customer retention costs a lot less than customer acquisition. And in the current iffy economy, retention is even more important.

But many B2B marketers remain more focused on attracting new customers, according to a new report.

The Chief Marketing Officer Council’s study, highlighted in BtoB Magazine, found that only one-third of global marketers have strategies in place to win back dormant or lost customers, and only half have strategies to further profit from key account relationships.

That’s too bad, because a host of new media and technologies offer us all kinds of fresh opportunities to understand, inform and interact with customers. For example, Scheibel Halaska works with several clients on email newsletters aimed at keeping customers in the loop.

Current customers, after all, are your most crucial target audience. Sure, you’ve got to be out there selling. But it’s a whole lot easier to sell to the folks who are already sold on your company.

For Marketers, the Earth Day Bandwagon May Be Full

In the thick of Earth Day media coverage, it may be time to ask: Is “green” on its way to being as undifferentiating a term as, say, “solutions provider”?

An interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal takes a look at that question. And clearly, in some sectors—particularly in the consumer space—the answer is yes.

Quick take in B2B: Environmental claims may not yet be devalued. But there’s certainly no shortage of green pretenders out there. Trade media are being flooded with green product stories … some have merit; many don’t. As a result, many audiences are becoming desensitized to claims about corporate environmentalism and social responsibility.

So it’s more critical than ever that substantive, defensible claims be the backbone of any green messaging. That’s most likely a good thing, because it may encourage more companies to pursue environmental initiatives the right way—with actual green impact.

Who Cares What the Competition’s Doing?

You shouldn’t—or not much, anyway.

Last week, we touched on business strategies and hedgehogs and such. To follow up, here’s a column from BtoB magazine that’s a window on the strategies of leading companies.

Author Wes Ball gives us a snapshot of what his firm’s research uncovered about “alpha companies,” as he calls them.

Here’s the big idea:

Nonalpha thinking: Focus on staying ahead of competition.

Alpha thinking: Focus on what your b-to-b customers want to buy.

Of course, it’s important to keep an eye on what other companies in your market are doing and saying—but maybe only to make sure you aren’t doing and saying the same things.

After all, what’s good for another company isn’t necessarily good for yours. Instead, what’s best for your company is whatever you do best—and that customers value.

In the B2B game, your customers’ success drives your success. So we counsel our clients to pursue a customer-centered strategy, and make that the foundation of everything they communicate.

In other words, move the way alpha companies do. They don’t get mired in keeping up with the competition; they’re too busy focusing on their customers’ needs. So take a page from their playbook: Stay out of the “me, too” fray, and you’ll stay ahead of the competition.

Advertising and the Internet: Time to Rethink the Relationship?

As a follow-up to our two recent posts on the obsession with ROI and the way information moves on the Internet, a new Advertising Age column dovetails nicely: Matthew Creamer’s “Think Different: Maybe the Web's Not a Place to Stick Your Ads” (subscription needed).

For marketers and agencies, says Creamer, big changes are happening in the way we do business—or at least they should be happening. He quotes Trevor Kaufman, CEO of Schematic, the interactive agency recently purchased by WPP Group:

"It's easy for clients and agencies to think about banners and email because buying banners is like buying outdoor and email is like direct. That is very different than nurturing the community of your customers, providing great content or executing transactions."

Lessons to mull over:

• We can’t simply jump into the digital game with a traditional-media approach that isn’t suited for the social dynamics of the digital environment. Banners can work well on niche websites, but don’t overlook the countless other opportunities to connect with customers in new ways.
• We shouldn’t obsess over tactical metrics like click-through rates that track how many people we’re reaching instead of how well we’re getting through to them.

The biggest lesson, however, is that we have many lessons to learn. The digital media landscape is rapidly maturing, and there’s a real need for serious reflection on what we’re doing there.

Meanwhile, many marketers and advertisers haven’t even gotten past the “brochureware” stage of Internet content—literature conceived for print, converted to digital. So it seems that we’ve got a lot of thinking to do …