A benchmark for social media

Marketing Week has recently published an article – Benchmark your social media – that offers an insight into recent market research and talks about an initiative to benchmark and create a ROI model for social media. The report looks at how brands can put a value on their digital activity. The following extracts are quoted from the article.

 With most marketers expecting to spend more on social media “few claim to know what they really get for their money.”  The four major digital platforms were examined “to see which ones marketers are getting the most success from. Facebook is the most successful with 16% of businesses seeing a return on their investment. This compares with 15% for Twitter and LinkedIn and 9% for YouTube.” Presumably this implies that over 80% cannot identify a return on investment. “Half of the 900 UK marketers questioned by the CIM see potential in social media, saying it will be a significant force in five years’ time. But for the moment, many aren’t seeing results. Nearly a quarter say their activity on Twitter was not at all effective last year, a third say the same for Facebook, 37% for LinkedIn and 44% for YouTube.”

Here are some interesting further snippets from the article.

“if you are achieving above about a 2% engagement ratio, you are generally doing a pretty good job. Past 5% is very good. It’s not difficult to acquire more fans through ad spend if that is what you are after. The challenge is keeping them engaged when you get them there.”

“Social media will make you money if you act upon what your customers are telling you. That is not just as a marketing team, that is the whole business acting on it. It gives you what is on the customer’s mind in real time.”

“About a third of marketers say they are just experimenting with Linkedin and 37% say their marketing efforts through the network were not at all effective. This compares with 33% who say Facebook didn’t get results last year and 44% who weren’t happy with YouTube.”

The general impression is that social media is still pretty much an unknown in terms of demonstrating a clear Return on Investment. Getting Facebook members to “like” a brand is a far step from engaging people with the brand and that is probably even further distance from turning into a buyer. For b-2-b buyers it may be a really big step.  

Returning visitors

Much advice is available about attracting visitors to your web site and gaining their attention with a view to converting their interest into a purchase. But how do you deal with people who already are customers and returning visitors?

Analytics of established companies indicate that a significant percentage of web site visits are from returning visitors. Enquiry source analysis further suggests that many already know the company. Add to this a review of search terms and there are again visitors reaching the site because it is their chosen destination - they know the company already.

There are several possible reasons why visitors return. One may be that their first visit was initial research to discover potential suppliers and short listed your business as a possible vendor. As that group of visitors moves through the sales process, the web site should make it easy for them to find the specific information they require at various stages in the process including pricing, delivery and ordering details. Another reason is they are customers ready to make a new purchase. Where product values are high and purchase intervals infrequent it is important that returning customers can discover what is new and what developments there have been since their last purchase.  Another group could be specifiers who already acknowledge your company as a qualified vendor and need to ensure that they are using the latest current product data.

Ensuring that both new visitors and returning visitors quickly find what they need will probably mean they will take different journeys through the site so it should be clearly signposted which route to take. Aside from the practical information such as who you are, how you can be contacted, pricing and delivery visitors will need to know about your products.

Where there are product options it is important to provide simple guidance to help them select the right one. Buyers and specifiers are influenced by what the experts of that market have to say about your product and what endorsement they give. Finally what do users and owners of your products have to say about practical experience. The factual, expert and user experience combine to provide compelling copy. One useful way of providing regular updates in each of these three areas is by including a Virtual News Office.

Let me tell you a story

Content is arguably the most important factor for a web site, or indeed for any form of marketing communication. But what makes good content?

There is typically much discussion and focus on the technical aspects of web sites, often in stark contrast to the effort spent in providing compelling content. For example non-technical people merrily debate the merits of rival content management systems whereas practical observation suggests that marketing people rarely actually use them. And although we provide systems for people to subscribe or unsubscribe from email lists it is surprising how often we are sent emails asking us as administrators to add or remove names. Content rather than technology alone is what can convert a visitor into a prospect and ultimately into a customer.

It is likely people visiting a web site for the first time will be in an early research stage of sourcing a product or service and probably relatively ignorant about the options, or what products they actually need to solve their problem or meet their requirements. For example they might have a need to measure something very accurately, perhaps in a hostile environment and only have a vague idea what devices or systems will help them achieve this. They may have considerable expertise in their own field and need to be in touch with similar experts in another field - in this case precision measurement. We have a client who does just this and for tim we have developed informational content that describes how their transducer products are applied in a whole range of measurement situations. This content does not spell out the detailed technical specification of a product at all. Instead the product is referenced as a means of solving a measurement problem and readers are invited to contact the engineering team for free advice in proposing solutions to their particular challenge. Of course the web site will also need to provide product specifications, but these are for a later stage in the sales cycle, once the prospect knows what equipment they will require. But without telling a story that describes a scenario they can identify with, it is unlikely they will have made the journey to get them looking at product details. They simply will not have known that is what they needed.

Of course telling a compelling story helps establish the company as an authority and expert in the field. By explaining what is needed, how it can be used and most importantly the benefits the product brings to the prospect, the company who has provided the essential education and perhaps demystified the industry jargon has put itself in the pound seats for when that prospect becomes a buyer. Merely talking about the company and setting out the products is not enough. Content that positions the company as a vendor that can benefit the visitor will not only help lead the visitor along the path to become a customer, but will be recognised by search engines to as providing relevant content.

Trade press - the quality publications

The last blog - "The changed role of trade press" - brought a deserved rebuke from an editor for failing to mention the quality publications.

At the centre of the blog item was the old and on-going practice that evolved from 'colour separation charges' into the now quite open charge to print press releases. A subject also picked up today on another blog. At one end of the publishing spectrum are the vaguely positioned publications that seem to have no defined target audience, perhaps deliberately so to accommodate a breadth of content in the form of published press releases. Here is an example of such a communication following up the initial 'sales' call. Only client details have been removed for reasons of confidentiality. 

"Hi,

Hope your well, nice talking to you earlier, here is a quick email discussing what we are looking too do with your company. We are looking too feature xyz groups ( name of item removed)  'within our industrial feature in the next issue of the publication, Its due to the fact that we have been let down with artwork at the last minute and need to fill the relevant space. As a result we will be reducing the cost to £125+vat as it is normally alot more than this. I hope to here from you soon. If you are happy too proceed, could you please reply reserving down your location and i will send you a booking form. 

We are national basis to 15000 readers which include company directors, plant managers,maintenece engineers, machine builders , design engineers, health and safety officers etc.

Kind Regards" 

What I failed to mention is that despite the emergence of the opportunist publishers most sectors still benefit from the continued existence of quality journals.  The comment on the last blog from the editor of such a quality publication offered the following conclusion.

"Industry needs a symbiotic relationship with a healthy trade press. While the enquiry mechanism has undoubtedly moved online, there is a mass of independent research highlighting that ideas are generated and business decisions made on the printed page. While the paid for advertorial magazines persist, they drag the whole of industry down around them. Those of us in the quality press do our utmost to maintain standards and to hold industry up around us. It is time that more of the PR world tried to do the same."


In previous blogs we have observed the importance of news items/press releases online in contributing to search engine optimisation performance and also the archive role of news items online. However there is emphatically a role for the quality printed publication that provides well informed and researched content that offers an authoritative voice in the industry sector it addresses.  

The changed role of trade press

Despite the growth of online news and failure of some established trade journals, there is still a proliferation of titles. So what has happened?

Before the Internet, the trade press played an important role in publishing news about a company and its products. Generally speaking editorial content was published on the merits and news interest of the story and not, in an ideal world, by the advertising spend of the company in question. The aim was to produce a quality, interesting, relevant, informed and trusted magazine. Companies wanted their news published because of the credibility and apparent independence of appearing in a respected and well read journal. Because there were often many titles, company  strategy was to place display advertising only in the leading books and use PR to gain mention in the rest. Most employed a PR agency to cosy up to editors and get their press releases published.

Even before the Internet the trade press landscape was changing. Publishers were experiencing cost pressures and many looked to increase revenue by effectively charging to publish press releases. Of course it was not presented like that, the requests were along the lines that the editor had selected the news item for publication but would you mind contributing towards the cost of colour separations so the text could be illustrated and be more effective? Agencies initially resisted these charges but over the years and the disappearance of the excuse to pay for 'colour seps' many trade journals simply charged to print press releases. Some appeared as 'advertorial' to identify that the content was paid for but others simply published press releases collated together in product or company news sections. Because of publication dates most of it by the time the magazine lands in the letter box is not news anyway, or at least has been available online for at least a month. The willingness to print anything also ensured that there were always plenty more stories than the magazine could publish.

So other titles started - effectively product 'books' - no editorial just a magazine full of product press releases creating a different business model, one that didn't need to hire journalists, just space salesmen. And based on this model publications come and go that just publish press releases often scavenged from other publications and web sites - a weird collation of news stories with no obvious target audience and published simply because someone agreed to pay.

Of course news publication is a very effective marketing tool, but one that calls for expertise in ensuring the most effective use is made of the PR budget.

No time for the detail

Despite, or perhaps because of, the proliferation of productivity devices and applications fewer people now appear to have time to look at any detail.

The fact is many of them never did anyway. They were happier firing off one line commands rather than collecting information, analysing data and determining a plan to successfully accomplish a task. Strangely people with limited attention to detail and minimal attention span often occupy top jobs and have a personality that seems impressive at first. "I prefer to take a helicopter view" might seem as though they have a grasp on the big picture, but are the creatures on the ground they view from on high giants or ants?

The problem is people who should actually be looking at detail don't, or may be are incapable of doing so. Managing by forwarding emails is one symptom that should raise caution. It is quite instructive to look at the email trail that typically arrives from some companies. It starts deep within the organisation with someone emailing a colleague a question, one that is dealt with by forwarding to someone else and so on until it leaves the organisation entirely to land in the inbox of an external consultant. Oddly the serial forwarders probably consider the act of forwarding completion of a work task in itself. Sometimes the email goes to a colleague sitting just a few feet away. Perhaps if people spoke to each other more, overburdened email inboxes might be less of an issue and communication more effective.

It is quite common these days to see people working the emails on the move. On the over crowded commuter trains into and out of Euston there are people sitting cross legged on the floor a Mac on their lap busy forwarding their emails. So the working day extends into travel time too - no wonder they have to giveaway the London Evening Standard for free now. Its what the chairman of a company I worked for years ago would call 'being busy fools.'

But marketing only really succeeds if the planning is meticulous something it shares with the military - in fact the approach to a successful marketing campaign calls for the same ingredients such as reliable intelligence, analysis, consideration of options, strategy, detailed planning, marshalling of resources and immaculate execution - plus the flexibility to change if conditions change.  And you can't pull that off without attention to detail.

Is Facebook important to your marketing communications programme?

Facebook seems to be a bit like Marmite. You either like it or hate it.

We have clients who really love Facebook and have embraced it as the lead platform in their social media strategy. On the other hand we also have clients who totally reject it, regarding it as having little to do with business. As an agency we are constantly looking for results that support the resource put into Facebook and preferably in the form of attributable sales leads. At present trackable actions via Google Analytics are pretty lightweight, so the response is lets put more resource into Facebook then for sure we will see positive results. But here's the thing, it is easy to see what other platforms offer. YouTube is a pretty neat way to publish videos and videos can be powerful ways of demonstrating products. Twitter is the darling of the news community and sticks to the simple format of posting headlines, immediately and as it happens and is both a source of news and route to publish your own news. Blogging is an informal diary style medium that offers the opportunity for comment and allows you to publish material that wouldn't interest the trade press. But what is Facebook really good at?

For a start visitors also need to be signed up to participate, but with 800 million or so world-wide that may not be an issue. Because we administer several different accounts I am always signing in and out and am  disturbed to see pictures of people's dogs, babies and other personal stuff turning up between company news. But then it is still really a personal platform - the business bit is kind of tacked on. But it is business that will pay for the advertising, not people sharing family pictures with friends. Friends are at the heart of Facebook, one article suggested on average people had 800 friends - that's a lot of dog and baby pictures - but in real life they might have just 4. Or perhaps none if they spend their lives tracking 800 fantasy friends! Is getting people to 'like' a company actually of value? if they like you so much they buy or recommend your product that is great, but b-2-b case studies providing such irrefutable evidence never seem to get mentioned.

Facebook's founder didn't come out too business-like in The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich and the movie The Social Network and Facebook appears more a phenomenon than a regular business which is despite this valued in billions of dollars. But then again so was the market in collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps, built on sub-prime mortgages by banks thought to be too big to fail. Maybe they have figured out what makes the Facebook phenomenon so valuable (other than advertising access to hundreds of millions) that will build a sustainable business that won't evaporate overnight or have its users migrate to the next new thing. Traditional advertising agencies are cautious about putting client's advertising money into new publications until circulation is properly established, audited and certified. Writing in iMediaConnection Douglas Kerr's article 8 reason's marketers can't trust Facebook raises issues of control, access, copyright and moreover investment by advertisers in the medium.

To use marketing speak, Facebook is a dilemma. For b-2-b businesses with modest marketing communications budgets the best advice right now is add it to the marketing programme but measure response carefully and don't invest at the expense of methods that are proven.

Innovate or die

New product development is the lifeblood of a business. Failure to innovate will result in stagnation and eventual decline. 


The rate of new product introduction in most markets is now relentless, so just to keep pace calls for a regular flow of new products. Few will be genuinely innovative, most will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary but the evolution will move forward the market’s expectations. 


So where to start? Having reviewed the focus for the new product and market positioning through preliminary research, it is time to start putting together a brief for the development team and a specification for the new product. Perhaps the most important consideration is the target market. What is the role of the product, who will buy it and use it and what does it compete with or replace? Developing a product without a clear understanding of users' needs  will raise marketing problems throughout the process. So it is vital to get this right from the start. 


Today many companies find themselves competing in the global market with all sorts of regional variations due to custom, culture and legislation working against their attempts to develop a single, universal product. One approach could be to develop a core product or technology, which can be adapted or customised to suit different market needs. Such decisions have to be taken before any other work starts and if they are wrong, the product may be loaded with unnecessary costs for any one market, or too bland for acceptance anywhere. The attempt to incorporate everything for everywhere is not only expensive to implement, but results in an unsuitable product for any country. Another outcome can be the ‘lowest common denominator’ solution where the product brief meets the minimum needs of its principle markets, but ends up being totally uninspiring and unexciting to everyone. 


Finally by designing with only one country’s needs in mind, may for want of some simple-to-do considerations at the briefing stage, enable far greater sales to be achieved in many more countries.

Ready to launch a new product?

New products are at the heart of any integrated marketing strategy. Apple and the late Steve Jobs are masters of the new product launch. An event which presents a great opportunity to boost the brand and remind loyal customers of why they purchase your products and tempt others to buy.

But even the best executed marketing campaign will not compensate for poor products or products that the market does not want. So the first stage of any new product programme is research. Initially there may be dozens, perhaps even hundreds of ideas to sift and evaluate, but new products will most likely arise from one of three key drivers:-Technology, Market Need, or Price. Whilst market input is important, it’s not likely to result in any real progress in understanding what to develop. As one commentator remarked, ‘you don’t know, what you don’t know’. Once again Apple choose to think differently and created products that offered far more than mere functionality. Asking customers what they want is not the way to build innovative new products.The lack of imagination conditioned by the existing supply chain through to the end user, will deliver a verdict which can be summarised as ‘more of the same, plus a few ‘bells and whistles’ that the competitors offer on their product - and all delivered at a lower price’. And know what? They probably won't want a product where the design brief is guided by a lists of current wishes.

Technology, not surprisingly is a critical driver, either applied to the product itself or to the process of manufacture, or a combination of both. But basing new product development on a new technology platform can be a high-risk strategy unless relevant to the target audience. New technology for its own sake will not succeed unless it also fulfils a market need that the customers are willingly to pay for. Failure to recognise the value of new technology or adopt too late can be equally disastrous. Sometimes the technology is a good idea in search of a genuine user application. The key factor is an ability to bridge the gap between the possibilities afforded by adoption of the technology and the implementation and acceptance by the market. Good industrial design can be a great differentiator making the product not just good to see but easy and intuitive to use.

Finally price can be the driver for a successful new product, but to achieve this will generally require having a lower cost-manufacturing base than any of your competitors. This may be achieved through entry barriers to the market such as high level of investment in plant, or patent controls that are beyond the reach of your competitors and will usually also need to be accompanied by high volumes and a dominant market share. Of course dominant market share is just one strategy. There are premium price segments of the market that can actually prove more profitable  for products that can command that price point ... Apple?

Logo as an expression of brand identity

Because of their essentially visual form, logos exert considerable influence on the way that customers perceive and react to a brand. 


Their aspirational value is amply demonstrated in the power of global brands, such as Nike, to inspire a credible fashion statement for the wearers’ of garments prominently displaying its swoosh logo. But an ill chosen logo can have a detrimental affect. When some years ago British Airways phased out the stylized Union Flag in favour of ethnic art on the tail planes of its fleet of aircraft, there was ridicule that they had substituted graffiti. The Prime Minister went so far as to drape a tissue over the offending logo on a model aircraft in the new livery she had been invited to inspect . Credibility is a key to a successful logo. 


For b-2-b marketers logos are not a fashion statement or prominently displayed to the public, but appear on stationery, business cards, sales literature, web site and on products. The logo symbolizes the company and as such must convey expertise and trust in the company. Research studies have shown that the content of a message is credible if the source is itself credible and trusted. The logo must visualize the brand values and communicate these to the customer. One expert has identified three main styles that most logos conform to - the name only, the monogram and a symbol - above or to the left of the company name. 


Words only and monograms limit the ability to express credibility traits, whereas the symbol, well executed can be interesting and express authority. Just as with advertising keep to a single message, the temptation to build too many ideas into the image can confuse rather than project a clear communication. Colour too is important and practical needs for adequately repeating the logo in various media and on products needs careful planning. 


Logos must then be applied consistently, without variation to build both awareness and a positive perception of the enterprise through the visual expression of everything the business stands for. So designing a logo is not a task to be undertaken lightly. A strong logo, properly used can support and develop the brand. A poorly executed logo can undermine a company’s credibility and trust.

Integrating a socia media component to the marketing communicationsplan

Including social media as a component of an integrated marketing communications programme that also includes traditional media, web site and email campaigns should start with some research.

The big question for many b-2-b companies now, is where are their customers and prospects looking for information? There is a general acceptance that display advertising campaigns in the trade press are not the best way to invest so much of the marketing budget as they once were. That there is migration to other media and the web site is the vital  hub, but how do people get there and how do they learn about your business before reaching your site? This is where some fundamental research is called for. In this fragmented media landscape it is important to understand current customer preferences for discovering information and their route to a purchase decision. At the very least discover how many rely on traditional editorial recommendation in the trade press, or like the 'hands on' opportunity afforded by exhibitions, are content to search the Internet or maybe like the more relaxed style of social media? And there is another thing - what formats and platforms do they tend to use - print, desk top computers or mobile devices? It might be worth just checking how well the company web site displays  on mobile devices. In fact this piece of research is going to need to be done regularly as migration continues and media continues to offer new communication channels.

Armed  with this research insight - what next? With an up to date understanding of what media customers and prospects prefer, then there is a rationale to determine how scarce marketing resources of funds and time are best deployed and to set objectives. The overall aim is to lead through to sales leads, but some channels may work better at the early stages of engagement and social media probably works best as a soft sell, hence it needs to work within a fully integrated marketing communications programme.

Do you know what is driving your market?

Like the product life cycle, complete markets or market sectors can also progress through different stages over time. 


At each stage there are different market drivers, so it is important to understand how these market drivers work. During the introductory phase the target audience is small and  is characterised by innovators and early adopters. Application of new technologies can often be the driver for new markets. There are plenty of examples of markets served by products that previously did not exist – mobile telephony, the Internet – where early adopters drive the market forward. 


In growth markets, the drivers are a constant flow of new users accepting and using the product, as well as an increase in usage rate amongst existing users. The next wave of customers, influenced by the early adopters, join the market and in doing so increase the current target audience as well. Mature markets develop when there is no increase in the total population of users and existing users cannot readily use or consume more of the product. More manufacturers will also have entered the market. In mature markets there will typically be many suppliers, little real product differentiation and pressures on price due to high supply and no growth. Many industrial markets are arguably in this state most of the time, leading to excessive discounting to move the product and with suppliers experiencing falling margins. 


Declining markets are usually characterised by a shrinking total population and sometimes a decline in usage as well. This may be caused by a shift to use different solutions or simply the reason for the product need is no longer valid. 


At each stage of the market cycle – introduction, growth, maturity and decline – the marketing approach will need to address the target audiences which themselves will change and not be a constant. The proposition to early adopters and opinion formers in helping grow a new market will be quite different to marketing to an audience well familiar with the market, comfortable with the same again, resistant to change but not yet ready to move their allegiance to a new and evolving sector.

Making the most of databases

Data collated to understand and predict customer demand has become an important issue in ensuring the right product is in the right place at the right time. 


Wider choice, reflecting the shift from the supply of mass-produced goods to mass-customisation, a demand driven market and the need to manage product availability to match actual customer preference, calls for better user data. In the business-to-business world the expectation has shifted significantly towards a rapid supply of product, where once several weeks wait was acceptable. As knowing more about customers and prospects becomes increasingly important, so legislation and privacy concerns as to what information is held on databases becomes a bigger issue. But many businesses do not yet really fully utilise their existing customer knowledge to provide better targeted marketing. Few extend beyond a basic address list and often operate several unrelated address lists divided across field sales, marketing, service and accounts. When this information is pooled into a single database, then patterns begin to emerge, helping to classify your customers, by product preference or usage requirements, for example and to create a profile of their main interests and motivations for buying your products and services. These profiles can be matched to the total market population. Profiling the total population including those with similar needs to your customers, can extend your prospect database. Sending information can then be selective, so that messages they receive by e-mail or direct mail have far greater relevance. 


Experience shows that recipients of highly relevant information return a far better response rate to direct marketing campaigns, leading to improved sales closure. Mining data, generating and understanding customer and prospect profiles, helps target messages with high relevance to the recipient - leading to higher response rates. 

Including social media as part of the marketing mix

For many b-2-b marketers, social media has at best been something of a trial, a test run, a toe in the water to take the temperature. But now some companies are thinking it maybe time to include a social media strategy as part of an integrated marketing communications programme. An integrated marketing communications programme should now strike a balance between traditional media, established Internet methods and social media.

Traditional print media has been under pressure for several years due to the widespread adoption of the Internet offering greater immediacy to news and information without the need to subscribe or register for journals and magazines. With advertising revenues declining, weaker editorial content, fewer pages and fewer publications, display advertising - the mainstay of many b-2-b marcomms plans - may no longer be the best investment. Although  traditional media offers researched and audited audience data, more of your audience may now be looking somewhere else.

In the Internet era, customers and prospects are no longer passive audiences but are actively researching comparative product specific and background information themselves. So search engine optimisation became a mantra to propel company web sites high on the list for relevant search terms. Analytics packages measure visitor statistics - where they came from, what they looked at and what, if any, action they took.  Web sites and email have been the killer applications of the Internet and matured into mainstream marketing communication tools, primarily accessed via desk top or lap top computers. But this situation too is changing - just when the web site has become the main conduit for enquiries - with more people preferring mobile devices to access content and the increasing popularity of social media platforms. 

  

Social media additionally offers the prospect for ‘conversations’ between sellers and buyers, explaining and showing products and receiving feedback. Measuring and evaluating interaction varies between the different platforms, but those with advertising options allow a target audience to be specified based on user registration data. Because social media’s origins are in personal social communications, b-2-b organisations generally don’t expect their customers to use this medium for business. But it’s worth asking them the question. Do your customers use Facebook, follow on Twitter, read blogs and watch YouTube? Because social media is used to share social trivia and questionable images it is not seen as serious media for business. But then again the same people once dismissed the importance of web sites and placed labels on them to declare their site did not contain pornography!

Keeping in touch with customers

With so much focus on the company web site and social media it is easy to forget to keep in touch with customers when they are not actively thinking about buying new products. Company newsletters can help keep customers and prospects informed about your products, and maintain ‘top of the mind’ awareness for your brand. 

A  company newsletter can be mailed to both ‘external’ and ‘internal’ customers. Internal customers include members of your team in non-customer facing roles, manufacture for example, as well as people in field sales and the distribution chain.

Even with the immediacy of the Internet, there is still a place for printed communication where readers can review the contents at a more convenient time. Not only should the design look professional, but the layout should make reading easy and include good quality photographs to gain attention and help break up the text. The content also needs to be relevant to the reader and add to their knowledge and experience of your business. A newsletter can also present interesting and noteworthy projects by explaining how challenges were solved, how your products were used and provide the endorsement of your customers. It can be a useful vehicle to help educate your readership about new developments, by giving background information, or to explain how to get the best use from your products. Newsletters can of course showcase new products and remind customers of the virtues of existing ones. Featuring company employees, explaining their role and contribution will help present the human face of your business and remind customers that they are dealing with a team. By including ‘useful’ articles you can also create higher retention value for the newsletter and well- produced versions have been used as reference sources. You can develop relationships with your readers by introducing response inducive elements ranging from a letters page to competitions and of course encourage readers to recommend others.

Above all you control the content. You are not subject to editorial selection as in the case of the trade press, which has limited space and needs to maintain impartiality. Frequency is another important consideration. A few issues a year sent out regularly are better than an initial flurry then big gaps between issues as the time commitment and need for genuine news content becomes a challenge you cannot sustain.

Media advertising

The term advertising is often confused with the whole marketing process itself. 


Our use of the word is confined to ‘paid for’ media space. In business-to-business communication this is mainly the trade press and portal web sites, but advertising media also embraces radio, cinema, television, bus sides and bill boards. A rather lengthy and convoluted definition of advertising is "the persuasive force that utilises mass communications to make changes in customer attitudes, behaviour and actions towards products and services in a direction favourable to the advertiser."


 Advertising is cost effective in reaching large groups of customers and potential customers with a shared defined profile, hence the proliferation of special interest and industry specific magazines that can deliver an audience relevant to the needs of the advertiser. Media selection must therefore seek to match your target audience and readership profiles. Advertising’s key aims are to progress the target audience through a series of stages:-

• creating awareness of the product
• turning previous unawareness of the product, into awareness 
• establishing a comprehension of the proposition and the benefits it offers 
• a conviction that the product is both relevant and of benefit 
• finally a ‘call to action’ to convert the prospect into a potential customer. 

As individuals we are subjected to hundreds of advertising messages each day, so to arrest attention the advertisement has to stand out from the others. This may be by use of compelling images, headlines or a combination of both, that stops the browser just long enough to take in the proposition. The fly fishing analogy has been used to explain the process of first being seen and attracting attention, then swiftly driving the point home. Once ‘hooked’ a few telling words must explain the benefits of the proposition succinctly, then offer a ‘call to action’ where the prospect can find more detail. Today typically a web site or QR code and the ‘call to action’ could be incentivised by the promise of a useful or attractive offer to enhance response rates. 


Advertising is a key marketing tool, to raise awareness, build brand recognition and communicate a simple or top-level message, but needs repetition to ensure that message is seen and acted upon. Other communication means such as PR and direct marketing will be called into play for a fully integrated campaign. 

Marketing for engineering, scientific and technical b-2-b companies

For every Apple, Google, GE and Microsoft there are thousands and thousands of small businesses trading with other small businesses in the engineering, scientific and technical sector that need to market their products to a global audience on a small budget.

It is a big ask for a small business with small budgets to do this successfully which is one reason why we set up Technical Marketing Ltd to help companies like this to succeed. Common to successful engineering projects and successful marketing is the importance of planning and testing first. Our technical marketing philosophy helps engineer marketing solutions that support and aid delivery of company objectives. Starting at the beginning of the planning process is the marketing plan. Very few companies actually seem to have one any more than they have a formal business plan. There is too often the impression conveyed that the only marketing plan is to repeat last year's pattern of expenditure - usually the last several years - which makes it difficult to find budget for new concepts. All at a time when marketing is rapidly evolving. The usual reason given for not having a formal marketing plan is lack of time. But what is the point in spending money without knowing why or having any benchmark to measure whether it is successful? We recommend not only reviewing the marketing plan at least annually, but also setting the budget that will help deliver the results and company objectives. 

Technical marketing brings the same engineering methodology and thinking to marketing - introducing staffing structures, building the team, setting objectives through the marketing plan, formalising budgets, introducing financial controls, defining schedules and setting specifications for creative projects. Too often companies launch into building a web site, designing a brochure, booking an exhibition stand or commissioning an advertisement without first deciding on what they need to achieve. Design led agencies naturally play to their strengths - a flare for creative and compelling designs - and wow clients with exciting images. Arguably engineering marketing, or as we call it technical marketing, lacks some of that wow factor, but what we have discovered is that clients recognise the benefits that our approach can bring to the bottom line. We supply the rationale. And with the increasing importance of the Internet in marketing, a technical competence and comprehension of what works online too.  Of course there is a need for professional creativity, but it requires purpose and direction - in short planning, organisation, discipline and control. So engineering marketing solutions works - our clients testify to that.

So do the marketing techniques employed by giant companies too woo consumers work for the less glamorous world of business-to-business marketing, where budgets are considerably less? The answer is that the general principles of marketing still apply – the challenge is how they are applied. People buying business products and services are also consumers who experience the world of consumer marketing every day, but in their professional capacity will be less influenced by emotional appeals. When buying or specifying b-2-b products the process is not characterized by a spontaneous desire for instant gratification. It is a process of evaluation and consideration which may be quite lengthy. But what might ultimately differentiate one similar product from another is the reputation of the brand of the supplier. Although price will always be important, quality, reliability, technology, availability, post sales support and many other factors may figure in the final purchase decision. Building that reputation for a brand is where marketing performs a vital role in creating an environment where purchasers will ultimately demonstrate a preference for one product over another.

Marketing should not be confused with sales. It is far more to do with planning for the future, with strategy to keep ahead of fast moving trends, the routes to market, and the means of promotion and delivery that provide the essential environment in which selling can be successful. When marketing technical products, there are many facets to the marketing role. Technical marketing will typically embrace new product development, marketing communications and protection of intellectual property. Instead of the emotional appeal of consumer marketing we recognize that in the marketing space we address of industrial, engineering, scientific, technical and entertainment technology products, we are more typically engaged with engineers. Accordingly we have introduced an engineering approach to marketing. Engineering brings discipline to marketing, a discipline much needed in controlling the flights of fancy of the creative media types in getting the i's dotted and t's crossed, keeping feet firmly on the ground and keeping sight of the purpose of marketing a product - not in winning design awards. And if bringing engineering into marketing might seem a strange notion, unless marketing is properly controlled and brought in on budget then it will be a disaster. Engineering projects are as much about planning, adherence to schedules and budgets as they are about technology. In fact engineers are increasingly being employed in some surprising areas including many types of management consulting even in the financial sector. 

Planning needs to be followed by effective implementation. This is an important part of our client involvement – working as part of the team to actually implement the plan at an operational level. By working in partnership with our clients, changing circumstances can be easily accommodated in the plan. We bring experience in a range of marketing disciplines from traditional to evolving online techniques and can handle some or all of these to an agreed plan. The mix will differ according to each client’s own specific needs and resources. Most of our clients now regard Technical Marketing Ltd as part of their team thanks to long standing business relationships.

If you market technical products and think your business could benefit from working with us then get in touch. If you are just interested in what we do then sign up for our e-mail newsletter or just follow us on Twitter or any of the other options offered on the web site. We are here to help businesses succeed.

Has social media ruined marketing?

Social media continues to divide marketing opinion. Rather than treat social media as another marketing tool, the antagonists are tending to focus on the all or nothing approach. In short throw out the old ways and bring in the new.

One important rule of traditional marketing was not to rush into new media opportunities which at one time was more likely to be a new publication. The thing then was to wait until all the hype of the new title launch had quietened down, then see how the readership - your target customers - had taken to it. Quite often new publications failed to build a readership and make it to the point where they had a certified circulation. Social media is easier to experiment with to see how it works and although some are free to use, resource will still be required to create content whether text, images or video, even if that resource is time of in-house staff.

Some voices are arguing that display advertising in the media is now wasted money, unlike AdWords and the like that provide a great heap of data that can be traced. Recently QR codes have suddenly been seized upon as a means of linking to a landing page via a smart phone or iPad and reviving the flagging medium. One journal has even decided to launch a QR directory with great fanfare.

Countering the call to switch to traditional media one article provocatively pointed out that prior to social media companies conducted a monologue with their customers, but now small businesses can compete on a level playing field. Bigger companies that could spend more on space and compelling creative concepts find social media has evened that out as they have to conform to a fixed format.

The best approach is to review the overall marketing mix and try to be in the media and places where your customers go. The challenge now is discovering just where that is.