Marketing Archives - RML Marketing

5 Key Elements to a Killer Introduction Email (B2B)

by Roger Leyden | Oct 4, 2018 | Communications, Marketing, Training

Using email marketing to introduce your organizations products and services to potential clients and partners is still a very important piece of the overall B2B marketing mix.

According to Hubspot’s Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing:

“Email isn’t dead. It’s one of the few marketing channels we can use to build an authentic connection with the humans that keep our businesses alive.”

Vital Design adds to the importance of email marketing from a recent Salesforce.com survey:

-For every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average return on email marketing investment (Experian)

-77% of consumers prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications through email (ExactTarget)

-72% of B2B buyers are most likely to share useful content via email (Earnest Agency)

So how does one write the perfect email introduction? Well first of all let’s consider what not to do:

x Too long – We are the Twitter generation, brevity in written correspondence is king.

x Too many proposals or ideas – Although tempting as it is to get all your company’s amazing products and solutions down in one email, concentrate on the single most appropriate for now, too many will just confuse readers.

x Too self-centred – Make sure your emails are about potentially solving problems for your customers rather than constantly tooting your horn about how great you are.

Now that we know what not to do, how do we structure a killer B2B introduction email?

Create an exciting subject line for your Introduction Email

The subject line is often the gate keeper to whether your email gets read or not. Do not under estimate its importance and make sure to test before sending any mail.

Introduce

Make it personal. Introduce your company and explain why you are sending them this email.

Build on your Introduction Email

Build on your email with an example of a customer (preferably well-known brand name) you have already helped and the results they were able to achieve.

Make an offer

Give your prospects a reason to respond, make sure you have a CTA (call to action) in your email body.

Follow up

Remind them that you will be following up but also offer them the opportunity to ‘opt out’ of your email marketing database.

Why your organization should enter Business Award Competitions – 6 steps to consider

by Roger Leyden | Oct 30, 2017 | Business Development, Communications, Marketing

Business Award Competitions should become a serious part of your organizations overall marketing mix. As well as providing invaluable publicity, business awards can help lend credibility to your prospects, clients and give a sense of pride and motivation to your staff.

According to Ed Reeves, co-founder of Moneypenney, business award competitions “go a long way to promoting a business. An award win, or even a nomination, can act as a third-party endorsement for the business and a confirmed seal of quality which can reassure clients that they are, in fact, working with the best of the best.”

Your marketing and business development departments should treat business award competitions with the respect and resources they deserve:

1. Which Business Award Competitions should your organization enter?

Only enter award competitions that are appropriate to your organization and/or solution. Stick to genuine awards and don’t be lured by the multitude of new ‘fake’ awards which can be purchased, other organizations and peers can see through these instantly. A Business Association, Chamber of Commerce, Industry Body and or Channel Partner award is usually a good place to start.

2. Is your product/solution ready?

Decide internally if your solution is ready to enter the awards, should you sit out this year and enter the following year when your solution is more refined, developed and has a great customer success story to back it up?

3. Resources

Devote the resources and skilled staff to fill out the awards application form with as much detail as possible on why your solution should not alone be nominated but could also be a worthy winner. Where possible list customer success examples.

4. Publicity and PR

Make sure your marketing team fully exploits the PR opportunities presented. Remember that these business award competitions will help your organization gain additional publicity from the marketing efforts of the award show organizers, fellow competitors and industry peers. Even if you do not win, the fact your organization was nominated and promoted will stand to the organization for years to come. Make sure to develop an awards page on your website to list all the awards you have won or been nominated for.

5. Benchmarking

According to Small Business BC awards are often built upon best practice and industry standards. By measuring your business against the awards criteria and comparing against your competitors’ solutions, you will be able to assess where your product/solution stands in the marketplace.

6. Awards Ceremony

Awards ceremonies usually take place around evening dinners and social events, make sure to attend where possible as they present wonderful networking opportunities to mingle with industry peers. You could also use the opportunity to bring staff as a reward for their hard work and commitment.

If you would like to know more about how RML Marketing and Business Development Solutions can help your organization enter and win business awards that are appropriate to your industry contact us today.

10 Short Tips for Running a Successful Webinar

by Roger Leyden | Sep 8, 2017 | Business Development, Communications, Marketing

The webinar is taking the digital marketing world by storm. Also known as web conferencing, webinars are services that allow real-time, multicast video conferencing events to be broadcast live. Participants can join live from any location in the globe, provided they have an internet connection and login details.

Marketers are realising that webinars drive high quality leads and provide organizations with great opportunities to offer value and knowledge to prospective clients and associates.

In order to run a successful webinar, we at RML Marketing & Business Development Solutions, have come up with the following:

Top 10 Tips for a Successful Webinar

Topic: Choose your topic and title carefully. Consult with members of your organization and concentrate on topics that will be of interest to your target audience. Make sure the subject matter can be explained in a short presentation.
When to Run: Tuesdays and Wednesdays have been recognised as the best days to host a webinar. Always remember to think about time-zones and where you expect your audience to be based. A 12pm EST start in New York will be 9am PST in Los Angeles and 5pm GMT in London.
Promotion: A three week lead-in promotional campaign (email, social media, blogs, paid ads, news articles, etc.) with a final day before reminder is best practice according to ReadyTalk
Content & Presentation: Keep words to a minimum on your presentation deck. Use images, graphs and infographics to highlight talking points. If possible use 2 presenters to alleviate the monotony of a single voice. A guest presenter of a happy client or partner can also be a great addition.
No Hard Selling: Do not turn your presentation into a hard sell of your product or service, you will lose the interest of your audience. Instead come across as a knowledge leader, addressing a solution to a problem. The fact that your organization sells that solution should be kept to a minimum.
Dry Run: Dry run and practice, practice, practice……. Always do a dry run a couple of days before the webinar is scheduled. Ask work colleagues to sit in and give feedback. Test all equipment, links, audience chat boxes, audio links and phone lines that will be used.
Make it Light: Try to introduce some humour or tell a customer success story.
Duration: 30-45 minutes of presentation with an additional 15 minutes at the end for Q&A is a good rule of thumb, but this will greatly depend on your content and target audience.
Audience Participation: It is wise to mute your audience during the main presentation, but actively encourage them to participate and ask questions at the end. Tell them at the start of the presentation that you will be opening up the on-screen chat boxes or phone lines at the end. It makes sense for the presenter to have help from a colleague who will read/field the questions as they come in.
Follow Up: Always make sure to follow up with your audience the day immediately after the webinar was presented. Send them a thank you email and if possible a recording of the presentation or a copy of the slide deck. You can also ask questions to open up future conversations.

Roger Leyden is CEO of RML Marketing & Business Development Solutions and has been creating and presenting webinars for many years. If you would like to know more on how RML can help you create and present cost effective webinars please contact us for further information.

The Simple Hashtag (#) – The 21st Century’s Most Important Communications and PR Tool?

by Roger Leyden | Aug 31, 2017 | Business Development, Communications, Marketing

As the hashtag (#) celebrates it’s 10th year anniversary as a modern communication tool, we examine its popularity and use, particularly in social media. The hashtag, sometimes called the pound sign in North America, was often used in information technology to highlight a special meaning. In 1970 the pound sign was used to denote immediate address mode in the assembly language of the PDP-11 when placed next to a symbol or a number.

The pound sign or hashtag then appeared and was used within IRC networks (internet relay chat) to label groups and topics. The use of the pound sign in IRC inspired Chris Messina to propose a similar system to be used on Twitter to tag topics of interest on the then microblogging network. He posted the first hashtag on Twitter ten years ago in August 23rd 2007:

It was after a series of forest fires in San Diego in 2007 that the use of the hashtag in Twitter first, and then other social media platforms, became popular. According to Messina the intention behind the hashtag was to make it easy for users to search for content and find specific updates that are relevant without the technological knowledge to navigate the site. Therefore, the hashtag was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages

Ten years later the hashtag is no longer just the prevail of Twitter users, but has also become highly popular on other social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, giving a new lease of life to audience engagement on popular TV shows #GameOfThrones, live events #SuperBowlLI, politics #POTUS and a whole host of news and worldwide happenings.

Simply by pacing the hashtag # symbol in front of a word or key phrase, the author can highlight the key points of his or her communication. Likewise, the reader can use the hashtag # symbol for research and up to date feeds on any particular topic that may be of interest.

The quantity of hashtags used in a post or tweet is just as important as the types of hashtags used. It is currently considered acceptable to tag a post once when contributing to a specific conversation. Two hashtags are considered acceptable when adding a location to the conversation. Three hashtags are seen by some as the ‘absolute maximum’, and any contribution exceeding this risks raising the ire of other users.

So, besides search-ability and speed of information, what additional benefits does the hashtag offer the 21^st century marketer and PR guru? Here is a list of some of the more popular advantages of using hashtags in modern communications:

· Improve brand awareness by using hashtags related to service or product to enlist and grow a large following and sense of community.

· Use trending hashtags where relevant to drive additional traffic to your site.

· Encourage interaction with customers, prospects and partners.

· Create a brand hashtag that is unique to your business and use as a signature tag.

· Unique hashtags are ideal for new campaign or product launches.

· Hashtags are search engine friendly

If you would like to know how to improve your social media communications and improve your brand awareness with modern tools, email RML Marketing and Business Development Solutions today at info@rml-marketing.com