Print’s Role in B2B Marketing

In your quest to expand your company, it’s important to put your best foot forward when marketing to other businesses to get them to buy from you or hire you. While having a good work ethic, competitive pricing, and superior product are all great strategies, you need to get your foot in the door first. In this digital age, print can have a big role in how you conduct your B2B marketing strategy, and in how successful it will be overall.

Location, Location, Location

Printed marketing materials are easy to distribute to a large room of business professionals. Simply make an appealing flyer, brochure, or other printed piece, then at any upcoming forum or conference you can hand out those pieces to prospective trade customers. Because everyone is there to share information and network anyways, print marketing can be seen as a much more positively received move than emailing the attendees at another time. As well, given the focus of the forum or conference those business professionals will be more likely to look at your work and read it thoroughly.

Feel

For many established business people, print materials still give a feeling that digital marketing lacks. The burst of color, the feel of the paper- it has a physical presence they identify with, and are more likely to look over your printed materials than a simple online message.

Comfort

The fact is many business professionals still read the newspaper and magazine. Communicating to them through the medium they have been familiar with their whole lives is a smart move, and will connect with them faster than a solely online focused marketing attempt.

Conclusion

Print isn’t close to being gone in B2B Marketing efforts. Use it wisely and you’ll see it still has much to offer

Building Keywords to Add to Your Content

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the practice of adding just the right mix of the proper keywords to get your website to rank high in search engine results. This allows potential visitors to find you easily, and increases traffic to your website. While some run away screaming at the mention of SEO, it is really not a complicated process. The following three tips will help you add keywords to the content on your website, so you can increase the number of new and returning visitors to your site.

* Determine Your Purpose

First, determine what you are trying to accomplish by bringing visitors to your website. What are people looking for that they will find on your site? The whole purpose behind keyword optimization is to put the right mix of keywords into the content on your website, so your site will be picked up in search engine results. If the search engines can’t find you, neither can people that are looking for what you have to offer. Once you determine your purpose, then you can choose keywords to pepper into your content to allow your site to be on the first page of search results.

* Research Keywords

Next, research keywords for your website. There are several websites out there that will help you choose the right keywords for your website. The keywords you choose should reflect what your site is about. Your site likely already ranks high for certain keywords; keyword analytics sites can help you determine this. You should also brainstorm to think of other keywords that may be untapped. This will help you increase your search rankings.

* Check Your Keyword Density

Once you have plugged in the chosen keywords, go back to your favorite analytics tool and analyze your keyword density. Remember that too few keywords will cause your website to fall in the search rankings, but having too many keywords can also hurt you. This is called “keyword stuffing,” and is harshly penalized by the major search engines.

How to Make Print Simple Yet Effective

Although online marketing seems to get most of the attention these days, print marketing can still be a successful way to find new customers. You don’t have to make your print marketing materials complex or elaborately designed in order to grab the eye of potential customers. There are plenty of simple ideas for print marketing that are highly effective.

 

Keep It Clean

A clean design with a few well-chosen colors, rather than a busy one with multiple tones, is the ideal way to catch the attention of consumers. Clean designs won’t overwhelm consumers, and they won’t hide your message. When it comes to white space, don’t shy away from it. Leaving a considerable amount of white space around your design helps draw consumers’ eyes to it.

 

Get Right to the Point

Whether you’re designing a brochure, flyer, poster or newspaper ad, don’t include too much information about your products or services. You only have a limited amount of space to make an impression on consumers, so make the most of it. Include the most important points you want consumers to know about your products or services. Putting too much information on your print marketing materials can end up causing consumers to turn away instead of reading through them.

 

Make It Easy to Read

The layout of your print marketing materials is just as important as the text you’re including. Make it easy for consumers to read them by including bold headlines and bullet points. These help break up what would otherwise be walls of text. You can also consider using infographics, depending on the types of print marketing materials you’re creating. These show consumers what they need to know in a format that’s easy to read.

 

Putting these simple tips into practice when designing your print materials can help improve your chances of gaining new customers. Remember that consumers value simple, easy-to-read designs and layouts that immediately let them know what you’re offering them.

What is Integrated Marketing and Why Should I Do It?

What Is Integrative Marketing?

Integrative marketing is a method that combines a detailed understanding of consumers with large scale data analysis to create content and communications that develops a consistent identity throughout all mediums and messages. It is a holistic method, utilizing the multitude of approaches, channels, and skill sets that are now necessary to be competitive in today’s digital age.

Why Is Integrative Marketing a Necessary Tool for Businesses?

Advances in technology, as well as the explosion of internet usage around the world, have led to a need for a major shift in marketing techniques. While in the past, consumers accessed information mainly through print, they now primarily access information through digital media. Furthermore, not only has internet usage become more widespread, there have also been dramatic changes to the way the digital information is accessed. Instead of utilizing primarily one device (i.e. the laptop or desktop), most individuals now use connected devices (i.e. appliances, cars, smartphones, and tablets). Moreover, social media has also become a necessary marketing tool as well.

To keep up with these changes, businesses must adapt their marketing strategies as well in order to create a consistent identity through all mediums and messages. Not only is integrated marketing necessary due to the plethora of media and purchasing options for consumers, integrated marketing also helps a business obtain – and maintain – a competitive advantage. Benefits of utilizing integrated marketing include: (1) an increased return on investment, (2) more efficient marketing, and (3) the prevention of duplicate messages.

When it comes to marketing, an understanding of the consumer is vital. With integrative marketing, businesses attract, engage, and retain consumers across a variety of digital, social media, and print platforms.

Millennials are Not Giving Up on Print

Millennials, or those people 30 and under, are tech savvy, with the ability to handle all the latest gadgetry and social media with ease. This has led to the idea that they are turning their backs on print media such as newspapers and books. When you see so many using social media, it’s easy to think this might be the case, but recent research is showing a very different picture. While they may be using paper or print less, they are far from pushing it all the way aside.

Newspapers

Many think newspapers are a dying breed because of the Internet, and the experts said the same when radio and television were invented at the time. An info graphic published by the <a href=”http://www.naa.org/millennials”>Newspaper Association of America</a> shows that 56 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 34 read newspapers, either online or in print, in any given week. People in this age group see their local newspaper as a reliable source of local information, and that affects them personally. They may not care whether it is in print or online, but they do appear to care about local information. The same study showed 10 percent of people in this age group are actual subscribers to the paper product, and an even higher number get a paper copy about once a week. About 70 percent react to ads in a paper newspaper as well.

Books

There is something about holding a book in one’s hand, and even millennials think this way. A<a href=”https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/why-digital-natives-prefer-reading-in-print-yes-you-read-that-right/2015/02/22/8596ca86-b871-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html”> Washington Post </a>story cited a study that showed a fourth of college students bought print textbooks even when they were given an electronic copy free. Overall, when given the option, the same study showed people in this age group relied on e-books only nine percent of the time.

Developing a Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy

Marketing means being creative, which you need to be because of the amount of competition. Your business has to not only meet the needs of your consumers now, but also try to anticipate what they may want tomorrow. The more avenues or channels you can take to branch out and reach more customers, the more likely you will become a success.

New Perspectives

The moment someone tells you to think outside the box, they’ve lost credibility. It’s an overused phrase that means nothing anymore. To really see something in a new way, you have to be willing to come up with practically unlimited ideas. Most of those ideas will in and of themselves go nowhere, but they may lead you to you winning strategy. Where are you customers? What are they doing? Are they on their phones? Are they mostly in the office? Do they watch television? Internet advertising, email lists, commercials, billboards and social media are all potential channels you can use to create an effective marketing campaign. The key here is to use the limited resources (time, advertising dollars) available to you so you can impress and retain your customers.

Working Smarter

Your customers probably have at least a few things in common, and that’s what you really need to focus on when it comes to marketing: what ties them together. If you work for a hardware store, and the common thread is the love of finishing a chore well. The campaign needs to focus on this from every angle. Maybe you run a photo contest on social media for ‘Best DIY Project’ while your newspaper ads show the pride on someone’s face because they didn’t have to call a so-called professional for help. Use different channels to promote the same message.

Incorporating Videos Into Your Everyday Marketing (benefits)

One of the lesser utilized methods of marketing, including video into your everyday marketing, can drastically improve your interactions while also helping to boost and drive sales. No matter what industry you’re involved in, there is an array of ways in which you can incorporate videos into your marketing in order to boost your overall profitability. With that said, the following is an overview of the benefits of incorporating video into your marketing methodology.

Potentially Viral Marketing Tools

The first, and most important way in which including videos into your marketing can help your company is by potentially going viral. This is due to the fact that people tend to watch and share videos more than other forms of media. This makes it possible for a video or caption advertising your company or services, to become viral as well. What’s more, there is no need to create these videos yourself. You can simply share a funny or informative video on a subject closely related to your brand, and add in some copy about your company in the caption area. That way, everyone who watches and shares your video will also view information about your company and/or services.

Improve Overall Interaction with Customers

In keeping with that notion, using videos also helps to boost conversation amongst your customers as well as interaction with your company as a whole. By posting videos, this leaves room for your clients to express their opinions in the comments. The more comments you receive, the more likely a post is to go viral and spark increased interest within your customer base.

Overall, incorporating video is a great way to boost traffic and drive sales. Just be sure to select/ create videos that are pertinent to your industry and always leave your information on each post.

Printing Trends For 2016

As with everything else, time changes the way we live and evolve and that goes for the print industry as well.  The way we used print 20 years ago is significantly different than the way we use it today and the way we will use it in the future.  The key is to watch for emerging trends and to get on board early in the game so you are the first one doing something different as that’s what will get your customers’ attention.    So let’s take a look at some of the emerging print trends for the upcoming year.

Use A Multimedia Approach

With everything going digital these days, you need to make sure your print marketing includes a multimedia approach.  Your print and digital ads should work together and complement each other.  If your ads are appealing enough, you will be able to prompt your audience to engage with you by requesting more information, clicking on your social media links or your QR codes to give them immediate access to what they want, which in turn could result in more revenue.

Packaging Print Advertising Is Gaining Popularity

Think about how many sets of eyes see a product’s packaging from order or purchase to final delivery.  So why not make your packaging more intelligent by showing the world what you have to offer and why you are their best option.  Catchy slogans, coupons, special offers and prizes etc. are all great ways to expand your reach, especially when it comes to how easy it is when using custom packaging.

Go Green

Traditionally, the print industry is seen as being not so environmentally friendly.  However, times have changed and consumers should be made aware of how often paper products are recycled and how reforestation has turned the tables on deforestation.  By implementing green initiatives, you will give your company a more favorable reputation while building your brand.

Other Trends To Watch

  • Digital infrastructure
  • Digital print technology via increased print speeds
  • The growth of digital color production
  • Variable data printing
  • Printed QR codes with links
  • 3D printing
  • Barcode label printing
  • Receipt printing
  • Web-to-print

The Bottom Line

Print is not dead, never was, never will be.  That means if you are not jumping on emerging print trends as they happen, you will be left behind with your competition picking up the slack.

How Do I Track Direct Marketing

When starting a marketing campaign for your business or company, the first thing you want to establish is a way to track the success of your campaigns. This will help you figure out what is working for your company and what’s not working. By establishing clear cut ways to track your marketing efforts, you can determine where your ideal audience is viewing your marketing efforts and if they are responding to it.

Traceable Codes

There are 2 main ways you can use traceable codes in your marketing campaign as a way to measure their success. If you are sending out mailers that indicate a special sale or promotion that you are having, use a specific code on the mailers that the users have to enter in order to access the discount. When the promotion or sale is over, you will be able to determine if customers found the sale via the mailers and unique code you used and how effective the mailers were. The other way traceable codes can be used is by adding them to your coupons that you offer. You may choose to offer coupons to your newsletter subscribers and a lesser coupon to all of your other potential costumers. With 2 unique coupon codes, you will be able to trace which coupons were the most effective.

Sales Campaigns with Unique URL

When sending out mailers or a newsletter to your customers, you can include a specific, special URL that the potential customer has to type in or click on in order to get to the offer or discount. This way, you will be able to track how many people accessed the discount via the specific URL.

Offer a Gift with Specific Purchase

A great way to track a marketing campaign is to offer a small, free gift with the purchase of an item. You can offer this free gift when the item is purchased with a specific code, through a specific URL, or during a short time frame. You will then be able to check how many customers redeemed the free gift offer.

Can YouTube Actually Attract Attention to Your Business?

One of the most important things for any print shop owner to focus on is their marketing strategy.  It’s critical to keep costs low while attracting attention of a variety of people.  For this reason, many small business owners have started posting videos on YouTube.

 

While posting on Your Tube is free, it can be difficult actually getting potential customers to click on a video.  With millions of available videos, it’s important to make your print shop’s video stand out.  Simply posting a thirty second commercial about your services will probably get a few views from loyal customers, but it won’t do much to attract new business.  Fortunately, there are two strategies that are proven methods of attracting a lot of views.

 

Funny and unusual videos are among the most popular things that people look on YouTube for.  Make a person laugh, and they’ll probably share the video with their friends and family.  Since most print shops don’t employ a team of comedy writers, however, a funny, scripted mini-movie is typically out of the question.  Instead, consider posting funny outtakes from the shop, brief jokes, or collections of the funniest customer orders.  Of course, make sure you have those customers’ permission first.

 

A more useful type of video on YouTube is the how-to video.  While these rarely go viral and post large numbers of page views in a short amount of time, the best ones will generate a steady number of views everyday for years.  These videos help potential customers utilize your services.  For example, a video explaining what kind of drawings will look best on a t-shirt will be viewed by people who are working to put together artwork for a print shop.  Odds are, they’ll be looking for advice on which print shop to use, too.