The Heinzeroth Blog

After several years of subdued gray tones and whites dominating (or should we say “minimizing”) the design landscape, it’s nice to see that more vibrant colors may be back as inspiration for graphic design and marketing overall. This shift is trending in recently announced paint colors by major coatings brands as well as in the predictions of leading influencers such as Color Marketing Group, Pantone and others.

With generally lower prices and up to 8,000 20-second video plays on built-in batteries, small video players are finally getting there as a practical and versatile demo device for point-of-sale uses.   

While inbound marketing (content marketing) is becoming an ongoing initiative for many companies, its adoption in industrial OEM markets is growing at a somewhat slower, yet steady rate. Do inbound marketing methods apply to industrial OEM and component businesses that target engineers and other technical professionals? Even if those businesses sell to only a small number of companies? We would say Yes! Here’s why.

Today’s fast-paced, digital communications can create real challenges for B2B marketing professionals. One of the biggest hurdles is developing a plan to generate a continuous flow of fresh content to keep your customers and prospects engaged through social media channels, targeted eMarketing campaigns as well as regular updates of your website.

Developing and supporting a case study program is an extremely effective way to help relieve your content creation burden while establishing your company’s credibility and areas of expertise.

When it comes to retail trends, no single organization has done more to change the way that people shop in recent years than Amazon. This remarkable company is innovating at a faster pace than everyone by improving the shopping experience with rich, easily searchable content and by adding the immensely popular Prime. Sellers who ignore the impact of this marketing juggernaut run the risk of missing a huge opportunity to reach a constantly growing number of customers who shop online first.

Some websites just seem to “get” the best practices of inbound marketing, with plenty of interesting blog content, calls to action (CTA’s) throughout the site and landing pages that convert visitors to leads. In our use of the HubSpot platform for inbound marketing, we are able to take advantage of tactics that have been proven successful in studies of thousands of HubSpot campaigns. Here is a quick summary of a few ideas you can use to improve conversion rates in your marketing efforts.

Professional tradespeople are a proud, independent group with a strong personal identity. They are entrepreneurial in character, but always remain builders-of-things at heart. They appreciate it when anyone expresses a sincere respect for their craft. When buying their tools and supplies, they expect a certain amount of attention, whether that occurs at a specialty dealer or in the big box retail environment. They feel their needs are special, and they expect products and services that cater to them.

Improving your success rate for marketing to professional tradespeople requires a good understanding of this unique identity, what messages resonate with them, what media they consume and, ultimately, how they make purchase decisions.

In Part 1 of this blog post, we discussed why it’s time to start marketing home improvement products to millennials. This post is dedicated to exploring how we can effectively reach this important audience with media, messaging and merchandising strategies that build relationships and, ultimately, drive sales.

Millennials (adults 20 to 34) represent a massive consumer audience with growing economic might. They are 74 million strong, accounting for 25% of the U.S. population and representing $170 billion in spending power. They grew up in a time when there has always been an internet, so their on-demand access to information and social networking has formed who they are as human beings and consumers. They represent the future of our industry… a world where marketing is a two-way ongoing dialog and the consumer has equal weight in the equation. 

Occasionally, some books capture our imagination and truly challenge us all to become better marketers. We came across five this year that we are sharing around the office. They each address the digital revolution in an easy-to-understand way, offering many useful ideas that you can put into action regardless of your industry.