» Online Marketing: What’s on Your Menu?

This Marketing and Sales Executive Think Tank was hosted at AMEC by Dawn Rosser, Manager, Central Marketing.

1. Creating the right mix of online & face-to-face marketing
2. Optimizing time and resource investments in marketing.

What we learned

• Need to maintain involvement and focus on e-budget
• Conduct metrics analysis behind e-media
• Call-to-action needs to be greater than increasing leadership
• Need to overcome challenges of reaching out to small-medium enterprise with increased face-to-face time
• “Work backwards” on where and how sales are obtained
• Learn more about niche marketing and how to target each group
• Incorporate usage of video and animation communication

What are your most effective tactics to raise awareness of e-marketing?

• Twitter feeds
• Niche marketing and traditional trade shows combined with e-newsletter
• Niche customer stories with promotions and word of mouth
• B2B traditional direct sales for corporate enterprises
• For medium sized enterprises, data mining is useful along with trade shows, awards, targeting list of environmental organizations
• Use the Web as an information source to drive traditioanl face-to-face meetings for larger accounts
• Use Twitter for awareness – not leads; Hash Tweets are effective for brand awareness
• Review click-through metrics on every campaign
• Invest in website redesign on better flow investor traffic versus real prospect traffic
• Explore/research key words being used with Google analytics to get at top of search list
• use short video animation to explain your technology’s complicated process
• LinkedIn is useful for networking and to see who’s who

What traditional marketing methods are trade-offs for e-marketing?

• Reading material available online; no longer mailing out annual reports
• While some organizations are decreasing direct mail, others are using it for big impact
• Expensive news releases are decreasing with higher email usage
• Mass print is decreasing unless it is extremely targeted
• Participation in trade shows with a booth is decreasing. Instead, partner with a client and leverage customer backing
• Not much of a trade-off but rather an efficiency/budget shift from print/trade shows to e-communications
• Direct sales representatives are becoming an extinct role
• Lead generation is becoming stronger with more easily accessible information; follow-ups can be more selective

What methods are you using to identify your organization worldwide?  How are you getting the message out?

• It’s not who you are but rather how quickly you respond; executive face-to-face meetings give a better return
• Use e-marketing as a support tool to generate and increase awareness
• When exchanging business cards, automatically save the information electronically and forward your v-card
• Use video technology to support reading material; this assists in giving face-to-face credibility.  Keep videos short and light

With e-marketing and e-communication on the rise, how are you tracking ROI?

• “Work backwards” on your budget; dissect how you obtain your leads/sales
• Define a good lead then measure cost of obtaining it; with sales cycles being 18 – 24 months on average, measuring a complete sale can be cumbersome. Keep it simple
• Use website analytics; define “word of mouth”
• Review past history of how awareness was achieved
• Leaders need to determine right sectors to focus on and where to target spending

Attendees:

• Bullfrog Power
• Hydrogenics Corporation
• BacTech Environmental
• Good Harbour Laboratories