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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…
Lead Response Processes from The Big Guys
The Importance of 4 X 48 Hour Response Mechanisms
One lead that turned into a $4.5 million sale over a period of years left an indelible impression on me and our company and drove us to make sure EVERY DETAIL MATTERED. After we closed the initial sale, and secured ongoing after-sale business, I called the decision maker to ask why they chose us. His response…”You were the first we found online, the first to respond and we felt that was a good indication of how we’d be treated by your organization.” Wow. Simple but powerful.
The Detail That Matters
So, we committed to sound process development, both online and offline, to make sure we made as many positive first impressions as we could. From direct mail, to an optimized website, to iron clad lead generation and response processes, we hammered out the detail on every level.
We studied industry leaders such as Amazon.com, Expedia.com, and Fairmont hotels. We stole ideas from the plumbers and pizza delivery companies and put together a system that insured we left a great first impression.
The Steps to a 4 X 48 Hour Response Process
After committing to a to a Search Engine Optimization strategy that insured we had a plan that was current, relevant and better than the competition and gave us multiple first place positions, we followed a step-by-step plan.
First, for every visitor that completed a contact form, we had a landing page redirect just like Amazon.com that said… “other visitors also enjoyed these products and services”, insuring additional traffic and awareness of what we sold and serviced.
Second, for every contact form completed, each inquiring party received an email containing links to other departments, products and services. Just like Expedia does with hotels, cars and other services. Simple and straight forward.
Third, we called all leads in 30 minutes or less. We created a “wow” factor early and often, sometimes calling back in seconds, not minutes, after all leads were routed to our handheld devices, by rep and territory.
Fourth, we sent out a product brochure every night to the prospects with a business card and magnet that people for some strange, odd reason are loathe to throw away (think plumbers and the pizza delivery company).
Our follow up processes consisted of capturing all e-mail addresses and distributing relevant, helpful, timed information on a consistent schedule so the prospect got to know us before they bought something. We grew our customer base by 27% over a 5 year period, much of it attributed to simple process improvement just like this. Simple and straight forward.
We planted seeds of a professional image at every opportunity so when they thought of buying (minutes to years in a sales cycle, literally), we were the first to be thought of when they got serious. No magic to this process, just simple business process improvement and a relentless focus on detail.
To Your Success…
Steve Smith
Social Media ROI & Digital Marketing
A Look Back… and a Look Ahead…
In our industry, it’s easy to look at ways to cut spending, and not plan for lead generation activity, including Social Media. After all, Social Media IS a bit of a mystery isn’t it?
If you go back to the late 1990’s, companies in our industry struggled with cutting spending on traditional media spend, including Yellow Pages. Where were the leads going to come from if we did that? And slowly, we embraced the Internet and forms of email marketing (digital marketing). We did a “little of this, a little of that”. If we really stayed on task, we’d even track customer creation and ROI to these activities (web forms that turned into customers, or email open rates that turned into customers).
5 Stages of Social Media Planning
But even that was time consuming, and certainly not an exact science. Then comes Social Media. What to do now? If you believe that this trend is here to stay (and it is), then you can look to five basic stages of beginning to measure Social Media ROI:
1. The Investment Stage – This is the first necessary step. It’s a great time to really look hard at how you are investing your current media spend, trim the fat and look hard at an investment amount that you can live with. Then, plan the mediums (LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, for example) and execute relentlessly.
2. The Action Stage – This can be the most fun stage. The investment you make, if well thought out, will create a platform for you to engage your audience, offer value and pulls users or visitors into your process. You can start slow and small (a Facebook page, for example) or do all of it at once.
3. The Reaction Stage - This is where the public forms a perception of your efforts, message and company. This may lead to a positive or negative perception. Either way, you need to be ready to handle this and REACT to the feedback you get. A positive reaction will increase the non-financial outcome of a given campaign. This stage is the measurement of brand engagement and digital advocacy.
4. The Non-Financial Impact Stage – This is where you see an increase in likes, comments, fans and followers. How effective was your campaign with the public? How effective was your reaction stage from a brand awareness measurement? Did you have an increase in Twitter followers or “Likes” on your Facebook page? Did you have an increase in email newsletter subscriptions? Things like this can lead up to sales, profit and share gains, the “tangible” stuff we all want to see more of.
5. The Financial Impact Stage - This gets difficult but it IS possible! Did you see an increase in web visits, an increase in email subscribers, web contact forms filled out, leads or credit applications? Did you see an increase during the four previous stages? This may take longer to realize the full return of your investment. Did Twitter actually drive revenue?
While this may sound like a lot of work, it can be. But, not acting on this new medium in a methodical, scheduled way will leave you behind the curve. The train has left the station… are you on it or watching it pull away?
To Your Success…
Steve Smith
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