Marketing Blog

You see it all the time, and you hate it. What was once love has become disgust.

Yep, I am talking about your website. You thought it was awesome at first but slowly time has gone by and everything now just looks so blah. Your competitors have great new sites, and it is time for a website redesign of your own.

However, a redesign is not something to launch into willy-nilly. Sure you have an old website. In fact, you have started to refer to it as the “old website “ in your internal monologue.

But to love your “new website,” you need to go into it with some reasonable expectations and a plan. Here is what you need to know to make your website redesign as effective as possible.

Goals: You need to have clear goals when it comes to your website redesign. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want your new website to do?

Most people want a few different things from their websites.

Creative: First you want it to accurately represent your brand. Remember your brand is everything about you. The font, the text colors, the background design you choose, all of this is within your brand.

Plan to have an idea of what you want your site to look like. Look at competitor’s sites. How do they look? How can you separate yourself? Also, look at sites outside of the industry.

Don’t get seduced by super-modern sites, unless your audience is very tech-savvy.

Leads: Second you probably want more leads. However, be aware that website redesign alone is not going to garner you more leads.

What gets you leads is compelling content, items that are valuable to your audience and helps them solve a problem. If you can add that to your new website now, you have a chance to get more leads.

Messaging: Spend some time to make sure that your website is going to reflect your overall message. A good website design company is not just going to step into a project. They will want to know what is your message, the USP and see how they can help you with your marketing.

Look at your audience: What problem do they have? How can you assist in resolving their problems using your website? Granted you won’t give away everything, but you need to give value on both sides of the sale. If you give value before a sale, then you are a perceived as a partner. If you only give value after, you are a vendor. Who do you think has a longer relationship?

Yep, you guessed it. So be as helpful as possible before the sale.

Involvement: How involved do you want to be in the website redesign? This can scale all the way to giving your plan to a company that does website design and saying go to it, to performing the website design yourself.

Working with an outside marketing firm is going to give you insight into what will make your website more useful. However, it will be more expensive.

Interested in more tips on building a great website? Download our website design guide now.

You all know what I think about using stock photography instead of custom photography for your website.

If not, here it is in a nutshell. I hate it.

I mean do you think people believe that those models work at your company?I am fine with stock photography when we need shots of something other than our staff, or other people (clients, etc.). For instance, if we have a picture of a whale tail for our “long-tail keywords” blog article. I mean who knows if that is our whale tail or no? Our whale is a Beluga for those of you who are interested.

But for people on your team or pictures of your corporate office? Bite the bullet. Hire a business photographer.

Here are a few reasons why taking corporate pictures is worth the expense and trouble of a photo shoot.

Transparency: Having pictures of your employees and your operations builds a certain level of trust. This translates to your branding as well. It endears a feeling of transparency and honesty that the rest of your message benefits from as well.

Honesty: Hey I know that I am not the most photogenic person is the world. I am not even the most photogenic person in my house. In fact, I am fourth with the dog. Actually, the dog wins. I am fifth barely beating out the wildlife in the backyard.

However, the fact that I don’t look like a model helps with our perception of honesty. I don’t lie about how I look and if I admit to that…well, why would I lie about anything else?

Custom: You get shots of what you want if you do your photo shoot. The worst part of stock photography is you have to settle. If you have a photographer come in, you can get the exact shots you want.

What are the shots you need on your website and collateral?

Your founders/owners: We definitely want a shot of the company owners. How they appear in these photos are all dependant on your brand. What do you want to convey?

At 366 we have an interesting take. We are a marketing company which lends itself towards less formal, and we emphasize the value of being human to your prospects.

However, there is also the perception of “creatives” that are taken less seriously by executive teams. So we try to strike a balance.

The best idea is to be who we are. I like wearing suits when meeting with clients so when you see me in most photographs that is what I wear. I usually tend to skip the tie, though.

How you dress in your photos where you take them all have to be in the balance with your brand.

Your team: Depending on the size of your team I would encourage you to do a group picture as well as individual pictures for key people. If you have a 200 person company, I will lean towards headshots of executives and a large picture of the group. If you have a team of 5, you can probably do head shots of everyone and a group picture.

Action shots: If you have a financial service company you could have shots of employees meeting or of them working with clients. If you have an industrial company, you can have shots of your engineers designers or R&D.

Proof of Concept shots: These are photographs that illustrate that you can do what you say you do. Whether it is shots of a successful construction project or pictures of a completed distribution center,

If you need help with corporate photography in Charlotte, Rock Hill or the Carolinas, contact 366 marketing. We have experience in photography that helps your brand.

It is getting down to the nitty-gritty now. Whether you are going to Promat or any other big industry show, this is the time that you start to get nervous. Right?

Yeah, I spend a fair time sweating before shows too. So many logistics to think about, so many things that could go wrong.

But do you know what cures anxiety? Action!

But you say what we can do? Everything is locked in now….right?

Nope.

We can still do some things that ensure that we get a better ROI. And we look like the superstars that we are!

1. Share the Plan:

Make sure that everyone knows the plan. I mean everyone. The logistics coordinator, the leader of the show booth, everyone who will work the booth, the CEO. Everyone.

Make sure that all of your people have the message and the talking points down. Make sure that everyone has a copy of the trade show planning documents, and everyone knows how and where they get their trade show shirts. Everything.

Every little detail is important.

Ensure that everyone knows the rules of the booth. If you haven’t planned an all-hands meeting on the show floor, schedule it now. An all-hands meeting before the show solves a lot of the problems that could crop up with the schedule, contact, etc.

2. Plan for the unplannable:

Something always goes wrong with trade shows. Always.

No matter all the assurances, something will break or go sideways. So how do you plan for that? Well, you can’t, but you can make sure that you have options for everything like…

Electronics: Make sure have duplicates of all the cords you need. HDMI cords, power cords, a universal remote, whatever. I have gone so far as to have a spare monitor. Monitors are relatively cheap, measured against a blank screen. 

Tools: Make sure if you have all of the tools that you need to assemble everything on your booth. Good to go? Now check again.

Restaurants: Even if you are not planning on dinners after the show, do some research on some places to dine. Pick venues that will work for different audiences. An intimate dinner for a few CFO’s is different from a low-key bar to take the members of your industry press.

3. Schedule:

Sometimes people get pulled away. Sales, engineering, R&D, even marketing. Things come up. Have backups on your schedule if at all possible to fill any holes.

Contacts: Make sure that you have the contact numbers of all the people that are working the booth. And make sure that you have cell numbers, emails, Facebook contact, anything you can get. Trade shows get hectic so make sure you can get in touch with everyone on the team.

Oh and not just the people who are working your booth, but also the contact information for your trade show house (and a cell phone of their emergency contact). Also if you used a trade show consultant have their number as well, just in case.

4. Help from HQ:

Make sure that you have someone at HQ that you can radio for help. Whether it is that a salesperson forgot their cards, or you need more brochures, whatever. However, keep in mind that they can’t do everything.

A colleague relayed to me this story, let’s call him Scott. He received a frantic call the day of a trade show from his trade show lead, let’s call him Bill.

Scott is in North Carolina, the trade show that Bill is at is three states over.

Scott: “Hello?”
Bill: “Hey glad I got a hold of you. I am on this show floor, and it opens in 10 minutes!”
Scott: “OK…”,
Bill: “The backing fell, and I need a screwdriver!”
Scott: “OK….?”
Bill: “I need a SCREWDRIVER!”
Scott: “OK, look down the aisle to the left. Is there anyone there?”
Bill: “What, yeah, all of the other exhibitors are there.”
Scott: “Ask if one of them has a screwdriver.” Click

My point is that HQ can’t solve everything. Take a second and think of how to solve a problem before immediately making a call. It will take 30 seconds and might save you from looking insane.

5. Capitalize:

Make sure that you have a plan in place on what to do with your leads. Also, all of the collateral that you will send to people that visit your booth needs to be handy.

Ensure that you have emails prepared to send to people that visit your booth and that you have a person that knows to send them.

Photography and Video. Remember to take all the pictures you can of your booth, your people, everything. You can’t recreate it. Capitalize on it when you have the chance.

Want more advice about trade shows? Want to talk about how you can make your trade shows more effective?

I think that sales and marketing are different sides of the same coin. They are intertwined as closely as two separate disciplines can be.

However, I sometimes think marketing and engineering are different currency altogether. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And for a successful industrial company, it shouldn’t be that way.

For the purpose of this conversation substitute engineering for developers, or basically, anyone that designs the product or services your company sells.

To illustrate that point, here is an actual conversation that I had with an engineer.
Engineering: “Hey check out our new product!”
Marketing: “Ok cool. So why did we make it?”
Engineering: “Because it is great. Look it does this!”
Marketing:“OK, and what problem does it solve?”
Engineering:“It does X.”
Marketing: “Why would a customer pick it over our competitions?”
Engineering:“I don’t know. Isn’t that your job?”

There is a disconnect there.

Engineers think about how they can make a product that works great. Whereas customers just want a product that solves their problem.

I know that sales and marketing can have a tough time talking to R&D and engineering, but that conversation needs to happen.

And it is marketing’s job more so than engineering to bridge that gap.

Why? Because marketing has the most to prove. In some companies marketing is ancillary. (Don’t laugh sales guy, I have heard “These products sell themselves” a lot regarding industrial enterprises.)

I firmly believe that for the best returns, marketing and engineering need to work together.

How can you make that happen?

Shared Mission: Engineering and marketing need to know that they are on the same team. Making a two-way SLA (Service Level Agreement) might help. This way both marketing and engineering are held accountable.

This can only happen with oversight from leadership. Both parties have to see the value of working with the other.

Money: Create bonuses for marketing and engineering tied (at least partially) to the SLA. Let everyone see that overall success is what drives awards.

Involve each other: It is easy to get in your little silo. However if at the beginning of the process marketing helps engineering with customer needs, then throughout the process the line of communication is more than likely kept open.

Your industrial marketing doesn’t start with the product launch. It starts with the needs of the customers. Marketing campaigns shouldn’t happen without input from engineering.

Marketing needs to be receptive to engineering’s understanding of the product. Engineering needs to be receptive to marketing’s understanding of customer needs. If industrial companies can get this to happen, engineering and marketing can be a match made in heaven.

Want to learn more about marketing strategy for industrial companies? Download our Industrial Marketing Strategy here.

Search engines determine what a blog or website page are about from keywords. For instance, if you write a page about “material handling space saving in Charlotte” then you are more likely to rank higher on Google for those keywords.

However, I find that a lot of companies try to rank for simple keywords instead of “long-tail keywords.”

Let me illustrate.

A few years ago I was talking to a business owner about his website. It was a financial services business, and he wanted to increase organic traffic. For the sake of anonymity let’s say his name was Mike.

We got into a discussion about keywords. I asked what keywords Mike was interested in ranking for; the reply was that he wanted his company to rank for insurance.

“Hmmm, that is going to be difficult,” I said.

His response, “I thought you were good at this internet marketing thing.”

I smiled, “I am OK at it, but you would need millions of dollars to rank for a word as general as insurance, and you would never make that money back. You don’t offer insurance services to everyone in the U.S. do you?”

“No, only Charlotte,” said Mike.

“OK, that helps. Do you offer all types of insurance?,” I asked.

“Yes, but we want to increase our whole life business.”

“So if you got a lead from Columbia, SC that wanted car insurance would that be valuable to you?” I asked.

“No,” said the client.

And that was Mike’s introduction to long-tail keywords.

You probably know that keyword research is an important part of SEO, content marketing, and inbound marketing.

Often people get tied up in ranking for keywords that bring the most traffic. However, most of the time it is much more valuable to try to rank for long-tail keywords. They will bring less traffic, but it is easier to rank for long-tail keywords.

How do you come up with long-tail keywords?

Geography: It is much easier to rank for SEO Charlotte than SEO. Loads easier.

Try to incorporate the location of where most of your customers are, or where you tend to sell your products or services. You can use cities, towns or region names.

Specificity: Instead of saying “insurance” use keywords that add specificity. For instance, whole life insurance.

Then combine the specificity and the region. Refining your phrases will give you long-tail keywords that are less difficult to rank for and bring in targeted traffic.

Do the research to find out which keyword combination might be the best and provide the most searches per month.

Then enter the different keywords into a few different search engines and see what results you get.

If that looks right then congratulations, you have found a long-tail keyword!

If you don’t like what results you see, try a different combo until you do.

Want more marketing advice about keywords and inbound marketing? Get our checklist for inbound marketing here.

 

When people talk about lead generation with premium content, you probably think about ebooks and whitepapers.

Well, we are going to blow your mind by showing you how video can dramatically increase conversion and be a way better medium to use.

Video lets you craft a message create a personal connection and most importantly build trust So that the more that you engage, and teach your audience, the more trust you build. Lead capture is all about trust. You need to trust that when you give your email address to someone that you are going to get something valuable in return. And that’s why if you can increase trust you are to increase your conversion rate.

But getting an email address is just the beginning.

To have a real conversation you need people to actually open your email and read your blog posts.

And then you can have a shot at turning them into real customers. Video can help this way easier Let’s say you got an email from me Chris at Wistia.com tomorrow. 

Do you think you would be more or less likely to open the email? After watching this video

Well my guess would be that if you feel some kind of connection, you would probably be more likely to open that email

But if I had just been the photo on an ebook you might not.

Once you start thinking about video as a way to build trust it becomes much easier to focus on increasing trust.

So now let’s walk through some of the logistics on how to use video to increase lead conversion.

Build a landing page with your videos behind an email wall. People will have to submit their email to watch the video. This works if you have a substantial resource to give.

At Wistia we did this with our video marketing 101 series. It worked really well. The downside is that if people have not built up trust yet, then they might actually leave before they convert.

For our 101 series, We actually got a higher conversion rate than we ever had. On a landing page before. Just from advertising traffic alone, 11% of people signed up, which was great. But the best part was that they watched a lot of the videos.

To get conversion rates higher put a short ungated video

What this will do is build up the trust that the quality of the content is worth paying for with the email address. It is all about building trust so that people want to get more content from you

Here is where things get even more interesting. Instead of a landing page with a gate, you can add an email capture form directly to a video. At Wistia we call this turnstile. With turnstile, you can put a lead capture directly into the beginning of a video and treat it like a regular gate. You can also put it somewhere in the middle of your video.

Maybe you can give a quick intro and then ask for an email hooking the viewer and collecting their email before they watch on. Or put a turnstile at the end of your content treating it more like a call to action instead of a gateway.

This approach is a bit softer and gets the most amount of views of your video. Even if you don’t collect quite as many leads.

This flexibility is a huge advantage of using video for lead capture.

You can choose when and how you want to ask for an email address in a way that is impossible with e-books and whitepapers.

Decide if you want a hard gate or a soft call to action at the end of your video and of course experiment.

Take a long-term approach to building your leads. Making lots of videos will help you stay relevant, but it will also help you build a rapport over time. And it is that rapport that you build up that helps you build trust. Content production with video can easier than producing other forms of content.

See how Moz does this with their whiteboard Friday using only a whiteboard and a camera.

Need help with your video? Contact 366 marketing.