Humans vs. Machines: A World Gone Mobile
If we thought the internet and social media provided us with alarming trends of adoption and usage, wait until you read this!
According to the latest analysis of global mobile traffic by the network company Cisco Systems, mobile devices will outnumber humans by the end of this year. Cisco also predicts that by 2016, there will be 10 billion mobile-connected devices around the world and networks will be carrying 130 exabytes of data each year. (That’s the equivalent of 33 billion DVDs.) On the other hand, there will only be 7.3 billion humans on the planet at that time.
More Proof Required?
To get a further idea of how rapidly this market is expanding, consider this: the report also says that mobile data traffic in 2011 was eight times the size of the global Internet in 2000.
Remember the Yellow Pages back in 2000? I can clearly remember people telling us we were crazy to cancel our contracts back in 1998, the internet was a fad and it was
” a relationship business”. It IS a relationship business, but the way that you connect, create and manage them has fundamentally changed.
It’s easy to ignore these trends and think we’ll catch up if/when fad actually becomes a trend. The fact is, most companies in our industry considered the Internet still in its infancy in 2000. But the reality is that it had already ramped up and become a regular part of our daily lives by that time. So when you consider that there is already 8X as much traffic on mobile platforms alone, it’s clear this industry is accelerating at a pace we have never experienced before.
Here are some other key finding from the study: Average smartphone usage nearly tripled in 2011, from 55 MB per month in 2010 to 150 MB per month.
- Smartphones represent only 12 percent of global handsets in use today, but they handle over 82 percent of total global handset traffic.
- In 2011, the typical smartphone generated 35 times more mobile data traffic (150 MB per month) than the typical basic-feature cell phone (which generated only 4.3 MB per month of mobile data traffic).
Our Industry, Our Time
The fact is, our customers have gone mobile and we ‘re missing out on the single best way to connect with them. When is the last time you went 5 minutes without looking at your phone? Your customers are doing the same thing, and they’ll be doing it more often in the future. When you have an app that let’s them choose their settings and notification schedule, you give them control. With simple push messaging, you’ll be in front of them more often with the right message about what you sell and service.
Plan for this trend starting today. For more information on the EquipmentFX App Suite, click here and begin to visualize your mobile world today…
To Your Success…
Customers Love Mobile Apps But…
It’s easy to get crazy with ideas when considering mobile apps for your business. Just think of a process that needs improvement and you can probably design something pretty cool. It is also easy to be tempted into creating a mobile app for the lowest price possible with the least amount of effort needed, but doing so is not only bad form as a company, it can be downright terrible for your business.
How to Get Your Customers to USE Your App
Even if you’re giving away your app for free, customers still need a compelling reason to download it. There needs to be something in it for them, otherwise they won’t bother to go through the effort of putting it on their device. (Yes, it’s amazing what we consider an “effort” these days.)
Are you offering coupons or discounts to app users? Are you providing information or incentives they can’t get anywhere else? Whatever it is you’re doing, you need to always deliver value with your app. There are countless processes your customers would love to see improved, but think through very clearly the steps you have to go through to actually design your app so it takes little to no effort to download, use and receive updates from your company.
Deliver Value
And value isn’t just about the information you deliver. It’s also about the way you deliver it. You don’t need to go over the top, but there should be at least a little production value to your app. Something that puts you in a positive light and doesn’t send people running the other way.
That’s the benefit of this new app revolution compared to the Web revolution of the 1990s. We’re just a few years into this, but mobile apps have always had the potential to look very stylish and to be simple to use. We aren’t all making this up from scratch like we were when the Internet first came along.
So there’s really no excuse to deliver anything less than worthwhile value to your customers. What that entails depends on the business you are in and the expectations of your customers. But get creative and develop an app they’ll enjoy and use time and again.
Make a list of ideas, by department, and map out a few of the steps that you currently go through that need changing. From this, great things can start to happen in the App revolution
It’s worth the investment. And it doesn’t even have to be a big one.
To Your Success…
Mobile Apps for the Equipment Business
Does it Apply to Your Business Yet?
Yesterday, I participated in a webinar led by two thought leaders in the mobile app space. The conversation centered around statistics, trends and practical applications (like, almost everyone can use one, but they might not think about it… yet).
Good equipment marketing and marketing service companies should think long and hard about some practical application and customer needs.
Shocking Statistics Not Heard By Many
You’ll see plenty of upcoming posts on mobile applications from us, but for now, take a look at some statistics that should get your attention:
- There are currently over 5.3 billion mobile phones compared to 1.5 billion PC’s
- There have been over 100 billion “push” messages sent to mobile phone users (ads pushed to smart phones with a clear “call to action”
- 97% of “push” messages reach their intended audience, most are viewed completely within 5 minutes
- Current email open rates run around 4-10% (10% on a VERY good day)
- There have been over 18 billion downloads from Apple’s “APP store
- There have been over 10 billion downloads of Google’s Droid apps
- There are over 1 million smart phones being turned on every day!
- It is estimated that within 18 months, there will be over 2 million smart phones being turned on every day
Mobile Marketing is the most powerful media ever invented… The New York Times
So What?
The way people consume information is fundamentally changing. Mobile apps and tablets are taking over as people (yes… your customers!) are now looking for apps to solve problems instead of using Google to find information.
There are four basic drivers of app creation that customers (this means you and your business) care about:
- Leads: How will mobile apps generate leads?
- Customers: How will mobile apps create more customers?
- Sales: How will mobile apps help increase sales?
- Exposure: How will mobile apps increase exposure to our customers?
Plan Your Future
In the past mobile apps post we discussed ways to think differently about this opportunity. It does and will continue to apply to your business.
Don’t be that guy that thinks it won’t apply to your business and equipment marketing plan. Take charge and start planning for this today!
To Your Success…
Video Marketing for the Equipment Business
So We’re Not Video Experts…
Then again, neither are most people that post videos. If you’ve seen the videos that have garnered millions of views, more often than not they are not made by experts. They are often spontaneous, without a thought to optimizing video for the search engines. They go viral because they are funny, shocking or have that hard-to-define quality about them.
Good, strategic video marketing in our business likely will never have that same effect, but we can drive in substantial traffic to our site and build followers of our business with a few simple, practical strategies. Good marketing service companies should have a comprehensive plan for this as part of your online marketing strategy.
Practical Steps to Own Your Online Space
Video marketing is becoming more important literally every day. The video marketing post last week highlighted why this is so important. We’ll have more posts coming topic, but for this post, we’ll focus on a few more tips and video marketing strategies to help you visualize more of the steps required to build your online presence:
Five Basic Rules to Follow
- Good Lighting: Keep the light source at a 30-45 degree angle in relation to the subject
- Background: Don’t have a distracting background, show only what is important
- Hold Still: Limit the movement and running around, keep the shots simple and well framed
- Come From afar and Get Close: Establish the setting, then move in closer
- Sound: Try and get natural sounds (no background noise) when interviewing a customer for testimonials
Edit Your Video and Make it Short
There is some of great, easy-to-use software to do this by yourself, or assign to a talented person within your organization. Beware the perpetual “snackers”, a term used for those that seldom watch the end of a video:
- iMovie: An Apple product that comes with any Mac computer
- Windows Movie Maker: Similar to iMovie, it comes free with Windows
- Final Cut Express: A bit more advanced for those that have to have it just right
- Adobe Premier: A professional level editing product with lots of features
- Under Two Minutes: Professional service firms recommend this as the optimum length
- Cool Tip: Put your website address on the bottom so the prospects know how to reach you
Video and Search Engine Optimization
This will be another upcoming post, but keep in mind search engines LOVE video. So, when you make your video and upload it to YouTube, the basic strategy to get your video and company found is to properly tag, title and describe your video so it becomes indexed properly by the search engines.
Details Make a HUGE Difference
Once you get into a routine to share your story using video using the described techniques, the power of video often becomes as important as having an entire website optimized for the search engines. One video done right can be a lethal tool in your equipment marketing tool kit!
To Your Success…
Inbound Marketing for the Equipment Business
Inbound Marketing Defined
Inbound marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and its products. Inbound marketing is becoming widely accepted because it complements the way buyers make purchasing decisions today — using the Internet and related media to learn about the products and services that best meet their needs.
What This Means for the Equipment Business
A definition of inbound marketing is great, but what does that actually mean for equipment marketing, or equipment marketing services in general? Let’s take a quick look at the short list of key disciplines that we need to understand and act on:
- Blogging: Websites continue to be the online “face” of your company, but the reality is that the content is seldom changed. A blog is a great way to share tips and information in general for your customers that is constantly being indexed by the search engines. Blogs tie right back to your site, so the more you do it, the more content you have, the more relevant you become. And, you can do it in a few minutes per week with a significant impact to your search engine rankings
- Search Engine Optimization: Organic search (not the paid version that Google makes their money from) is a set of strategies that use keywords and phrases strategically placed within your site in a certain way that insures you have the best chance at attracting the prospects and customers searching for what you sell. We’ll cover the difference between “on page” and “off page” search engine optimization in an upcoming related post.
- Social Media: This allows for an online social relationship with potentially thousands of customers. If you stick to the basics of “telling” vs “selling” and educate your customers and prospects about useful ways to make their lives easier, you drive interest and traffic to your website. When they visit your site, they make decisions to complete a contact form, call a dedicated 800# or move on.
Prospects Buy When They Are Ready to Buy
Not when you are ready to sell! The fact is, equipment marketing has lagged several industries when it doesn’t have to. Our prospects are literally bombed with information today. Recent studies show each prospects get’s between 3,000 – 5,000 marketing messages per day.
That’s a LOT of messages. They forget about you and all of the great stuff you sell and service. So, inbound marketing and inbound marketing service companies need to account for this and install a marketing “system” which keeps your company fresh and relevant WITHOUT selling. Educate your audience about how you solve problems and they’ll buy when they’re ready.
To Your Success…
Smart Equipment Technology: Better Ways to Create and Manage Customers
Your Digital Marketing Lab
Over the last few years, we have been hard at work building relationships and understanding how and why technology impacts our business, customers and bottom line. Equipment marketing is changing! Over the next month, you’ll see some exciting new changes coming to our website that reflect new service offerings centered around technology that can help our great equipment business create new customers and manage existing ones.
What’s To Come
Not only will you find what we do here at EquipmentFX a living, breathing laboratory of good marketing and technology, we’ve surveyed hundreds of customers, asked about their pains and challenges and have come up with a free video series called “Technology Accelerators for Business”. It is specifically centered on low cost, practical solutions that help us turn complete strangers into paying customers. Some of the subjects include:
- Getting Organized: How to keep all of the stuff coming at us organized when we all have to do more with less
- Database Management: How to clean up our existing databases without making a big deal about it
- Website Design & Development: How to understand and screen web companies that are tasked with helping you create more customers
- Search Engine Optimization: How to understand exactly where you are and build a road map to out rank your competition in the region you do business in, for all your products and services
- Lead Management: How to build a world class lead management system for a few bucks a month without the cost or complexity of a full blown CRM system
- Follow Up Marketing: How to build an e-mail campaign on auto-pilot that guarantees each and every visitor to your website that completes a contact form is contacted 12-16 times per year without worrying about whether the sales staff follows up or not
- Social Media: How to build and manage your social media profiles in a few hours per week and turn casual fans into paying customers
- Mobile Applications: How to understand the business case for mobile applications, look for areas to use them and get them built cheaply but effectively
The Rules Have Changed
Nothing we teach or preach has not been tried and tested. Equipment marketing and equipment marketing service companies need to understand the fundamentals these days to make the phones ring for the sales staff and generate new leads at all costs. It is the lifeblood of any sales organization and we’re excited to show you what we’ve been working on!
To Your Success…
Equipment Marketing Best Practices: Practical Tips Using Video
The Facts are Facts…
Video marketing is becoming very big, very quickly. Many in our industry still see it as somewhat of a gimmick, a “hmmm… maybe at some point” initiative or have a “where would we start and what would we do” reaction. Let’s talk a few hard facts first:
- Fact #1: Every minute of every day, 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube
- Fact #2: Using video, customers and prospects are 53X more likely to find you
- Non-Fact But Well Informed Opinion: Cisco systems thinks that in 3-4 years time, 90% of all content on the internet will be video
Practical Tips to Think About
When considering equipment marketing, think of video creation, use and distribution as a key part of your marketing mix. To get you thinking, I’ve listed a few handy tips to think about:
Tip #1: Define Your Goals
- Increase direct traffic to your website
- Educate people about your company, product and services
- Build inbound links to your website
- Recruit new employees
- Demonstrate the diversity of your existing customer based and how your solutions fit those that don’t know you
- Build credibility with testimonials
Tip #2: Determine the Type of Video
- Testimonial: Customers are great advocates, so let them tell you you
- Product Demonstrations: Your off your product line, features and benefits of in the application, 24/7
- Event or Conference: Make a video summarizing a special event to show off a new facility, seasonal special or a special customer function
- About the Team: Everyone loves to know they’re going to be supported, so show ‘em!
- Tips & Tricks: Create a series of videos showing customers how to solve everyday challenges. It’ll keep ‘em happy and your employees focused on creating and managing more customers
Tip #3: Include a Clear “Call to Action”
- Make the Call to Action Obvious: Not unlike the sale, ask for the order! Tell them what to do… visit your website, call you or?
- Be Consistent with the Behavior You Want to Target: Don’t have them do something or go somewhere and leave them wondering where they are or what they are supposed to do
- Create a Sense of Urgency: Give your audience a specific time to get something or do something. Maybe a “spring special” tied to maintenance specials or something
Video Marketing for Equipment Dealerships
The time is here and now to understand this aspect of your equipment marketing. The technology is cheap, it’s effective, ANYONE can learn how to do it and it will significantly enhance your equipment dealership’s ability to attract and retain more new customers or prospects. To learn more about technology and equipment marketing services, visit our blog at http://blog.equipmentfx.com.
To Your Success…
Mobile Apps for the Equipment Business
An Interesting Conversation…
I met yesterday with a very professional APP developer to discuss the business case for mobile applications. It seems the word “APP” is the rage these days, and with good reason. If you’re not making your business “smart phone friendly”, you’re missing out on literally millions of dollars of opportunity.
Today, however, the focus, and least in our industry, and the focus of equipment marketing, has been on making “mobile websites”, those that render on your phone like you see on your desktop. Which is fine, but only part of the equation. Let’s talk APP for a minute. The real BUSINESS reasons for developing an APP are the following:
- Improve revenue by engaging more customers
- Decrease costs by making a costly process more efficient
- Improve customer satisfaction by making their lives easier when engaging your customer
Use Your Imagination
With that in mind, think about all of the possible opportunities to engage customers and make their lives easier. There are literally hundreds of “touch points” within the equipment industry that beg for good mobile apps. A few are listed here, but it’s fun to think bigger:
- Games & Giveaways: Each time a customer has an experience with you, they can be encouraged to play a game to stay in touch for rewards or prizes. This gives your company and a customer to continue to engage.
- Service Department: Design a field work order that is rendered on a tablet whereby approval is instant and is e-mailed back to the service department for processing
- Service Scheduling: Use an APP for customers that allow them to schedule service, directly connecting your company to your customer when those service bays need filling and you can offer “specials” to get them in the door
- Customer Service: Imagine the possibilities with this one. An APP that is developed that allows a customer, in real time, to take a 4 question survey in which the results are automatically scored and charted allowing management to view the feedback in real time
Equipment Marketing and Mobile Applications
This is the first in several upcoming posts about this exciting technology. EquipmentFX is pioneering some very cool ways to use mobile applications to make our lives easier and more productive. Look for more posts on this subject…
To Your Success…
5 Facts About Lead Managment
Five Facts About Lead Management
Sometimes lost in the purpose of equipment marketing (branding, messaging, websites etc…) is the importance of metrics to understand where leads come from and why they fill out a contact form. Filling out a contact form is the holy grail of “Inbound Marketing”. It’s what allows our equipment marketing departments, or equipment marketing service partners, to follow-up and communicate responsibly. See these alarming statistics published by Leads360, a leading online lead service:
- Leads convert 22 times more often when you make contact within the first 5 minutes
- 78% of prospects convert with the company that first call them
- The average lead takes between 5 and 6 attempts to contact
- Changes in sales process can impact close rates by more than 35%
- 40% of leads eventually convert with consistent, long term follow-up
So, when you plan your equipment marketing for 2012, make sure your lead generation and management processes are tight and visible. If you’d like a complete Lead Management Checklist, stay tuned or email me at steve@equipmentfx.com and I’ll send one right away.
To Your Success…
2012 Marketing Must Have’s
2012 Equipment Marketing Must Have’s
It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged but we’re back to it. It was high time to focus on some big projects that I hope help our industry long term.
2011 was a great year for me, and I worked on some great projects that included online equipment inventory management and helping several companies improve their equipment marketing. Sometimes we did a lot, sometimes we did a little, but we always progressed toward a common goal: How to create and manage new customers.
Control What We Can
Our industry faced a ton of challenges in 2011. It’s hard to know what to believe sometimes. First we’ve got good news, then we’ve got bad news. Then we stop hiring and spending. Most that I talk to are pretty optimistic fortunately. But, I am always reminded that in equipment marketing, we can and should control our future. There are small, practical and cost effective steps we can take to control how we create and manage relationships.
Whether you do your marketing yourself, or hire an agency, marketing has fundamentally changed from “Outbound” to “Inbound”. Knowing the difference quite literally could be the difference between success or failure. It respects the relationship building aspect of normal sales processes, but dramatically accelerates your ability to spread your message and capture leads. It measures the key activity that drives performance.
11 Core Competencies Your Agency Must Have
1) Offers the Right Services: Be clear about what you need, and what they offer
2) Presents a Clearly Defined Delivery Process: How will this Agency deliver on their promise?
3) Uses a Goal Oriented Sales Process: Equipment marketing should HELP sales, and have specific goals to do this
4) Maintains a Website Optimized for Inbound: They should be familiar with the term “inbound” and know the key tools and technologies
5) Presents Compelling Case Studies: They should have the “proof” of leads, leads to sales and/or results to back up their claim
6) Cites Specific Areas of Focus: No one can do EVERYTHING, unless they have a big, and well oiled team
7) Teaches & Trains Your People: They should be committed to helping your equipment marketing and equipment marketing team
8) In House Capabilities or Trusted Partners: Most firms do both, but it helps to understand upfront
9) Possesses Strong Project Management Skills: This is not an activity to be taken lightly and the equipment marketing company should understand the detail to pull the project together
10) Places an Emphasis on Measurement: Good equipment marketing is about measuring… everything!
11) Value Transparency: Everything should be visible, measurable and easy communication should be par for the course
I hope that helps. There is soooo much our industry stands to gain from good fundamentals. Whether we like it or not, equipment marketing has fundamentally changed but we CAN control our destiny with a good plan. If you’d like a formal checklist of all of the key questions, look for upcoming posts or email me at steve@equipmentfx.com for a complete list.
To Your Success…
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