Generate leads using integrated campaigns

Editor’s Note: This is another installment in a series of articles intended to help metal fabricators improve their commercial engines and grow their businesses. To complement this two-part article, Fairmont Concepts is hosting a 45-minute webinar describing this lead-generation approach on July 12, 2018, 11 a.m. Pacific, 2 p.m. Eastern. The webinar will present how to create an integrated campaign, provide helpful visuals and examples, and answer questions. Click here to sign up or download the webinar.

The last article in this series focused on methods for generating leads when you need them most, starting with identifying your target audience, moving to creating messaging, and ending with a laundry list of lead-generation methods. However, picking one lead-generation activity off a list isn’t enough. For best results, manufacturers use multiple marketing activities under a common theme, called integrated campaigns. Since it takes seven to 13 touches to get someone to engage with you, it is most effective if your target audience sees your content in numerous ways. Here is a simple list.

Common Elements of an Integrated Campaign

Direct Mail
Postal mail has returned as a viable means of contacting your audience. Email overload causes many emails to go unnoticed. Postal mail, even when thrown away, can still leave an effective impression. If you really want to get someone’s attention, send 3-D mail or lumpy mail. It is opened nearly 100 percent of the time.

SEM and Social Media
Search engine marketing is advertising to those surfing the web or using social media. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter offer advertising opportunities. Most allow you to select specific demographics so you are not wasting your ad dollars trying to promote a dump truck to an accountant.

Social Media Posts
Posting on social media can grow a following. Even manufacturers of high-dollar products find some success using social media as a vehicle for promoting products, capabilities, and brand.

Press Releases
Don’t forget about the age-old press release. They are free and can add credibility to your campaign. Make sure the trade publications and newsletters covering your industry get a copy and a phone call from you.

Videos and Blogs
Blogs and videos can carry your integrated campaign message to your audience in an effective manner. Audiences are more responsive when the content is educational as opposed to sales-oriented.

Email
Email blasts is an obvious and inexpensive way to touch your audience.

Phone Calling
Although time-consuming, calling contacts in your customer relationship management database can be effective. Cold-calling prospects who have not engaged with you in any way will be less effective, unless you have a good reason to call, such as following up with someone who reacted positively to an email or who received lumpy mail from you.

Events
Tradeshows, open houses, demo days, educational seminars, and other in-person events are powerful tools for your integrated campaign. For those who attend, you have the perfect opportunity to qualify them as a potential lead. For those who do not attend, they see you as a credible player. Educational webinars also can be highly effective.

Putting It All Together

As mentioned in the previous article, it is important that you clearly identify your target audience and its needs, and then create the thematic messaging that will be used throughout all vehicles of your integrated campaign. Pay special attention to the messaging part. Don’t just come up with a tagline. Create a set of messages carefully crafted to move your audience from a position of not engaging with you to one of willing engagement. Use the Barbell Message Creation Exercise™ to accomplish this.

Example: An Integrated Campaign to Your Existing Contacts

This integrated campaign example can be used to spark renewed interest from the contacts in your CRM or to generate leads from a rented list of a trade association or other reputable source. Modify this campaign as you see fit, rearranging the order or replacing one marketing vehicle with another.

Each marketing vehicle should include a call-to-action (CTA). A typical CTA tells the prospect to go to a website landing page tailored to your campaign where visitors receive valuable content and visitor analytics are tracked.

Here’s a possible sequence for a six-week integrated campaign:

1. Write Articles. Contact trade publications and popular blog authors and ask if they will run an educational article. Align article content with your campaign. For print magazines, shop your article eight weeks or more before the start of your campaign to allow time for editing and placement. If your target publication uses only electronic media, you will need approximately four weeks.
   
   LinkedIn and other social media sites also can be very effective places to make your written articles available. Link to your article on LinkedIn and other social media sites and provide excerpts.


2. Send Press Releases. Writing a press release and sending it to various sources for pickup is hit-or-miss, but it is free, can build brand awareness, and can build campaign momentum. Send out your press release a few weeks before you launch the first direct contact activity. This gives time for pickup and publication. Consider trade associations and trade publications, as well as websites and newsletters that are involved in your industry. Include a CTA.


3. Send Email No. 1. This first email must introduce your campaign and include the CTA. The CTA should send them to a custom website landing page where they can get more information, download a valuable document, watch a video, or sign up for an event. This email should be in HTML graphical form, as opposed to text-based.


4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)—Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising. For SEM, you will create ads and identify keywords. Here is a good explanation of how to advertise on Google. Most small to midsized manufacturers find advertising on Google and LinkedIn to be the most effective choices, while others add Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites.
   
   With PPC advertising you control how much you will spend per day, which ad is displayed, and who the target audience is (using demographic breakdowns). Keep the advertising going for the duration of your campaign. It generates extensive analytics that help you continuously improve your ad campaign.


5. Send Email No. 2. Send another HTML email.


6. Make a Phone Call. If you have the resources to make calls, then you have two choices. One is to call with intent to reach the person, in which case you should be ready to make up to six phone calls as you attempt to make contact, leaving a message only after the first and last call. Another option is to plan to make only one phone call, during which you will either reach the person and have a conversation or leave a message.


7. Send Email No. 3. Break up the HTML graphical email with an occasional text-based email from your local salesperson. Keep it short and include a CTA that sends the prospect to your landing page, as well as encourages them to call the salesperson directly.


8. Send Email No. 4. Send another HTML email.


9. Send Email No. 5. Send another HTML email.

This integrated campaign example included nine potential touch points to your audience. The majority of the activities were email sends, which are nearly free once you’ve put in the time and energy to create the emails and scrub your list. Each should be unique in some way; don’t bore your audience with the same email over and over. Some marketing experts might suggest replacing more of the HTML emails with text-based. Experiment and see what resonates with your audience.

This example involved your existing list of contacts. If you are sending to a rented list from a reputable source, such as a trade magazine subscriber list, then some of the marketing vehicles, such as phone calls and SEM, are not viable. You will find it costs approximately $1 to send three emails per contact to a rented list. The price will be higher, of course, if you add direct mailing.

Best of luck on your next integrated campaign.