Would your integration firm benefit from implementing these marketing tips and strategies?
Some integrators within the NSCA community are extremely focused on marketing, others—not so much.
Regardless of which category your company best aligns with, NSCA’s Marketing Communications Committee has some marketing tips to share with you. If you’re already using some of these ideas, consider whether your company is fully leveraging them. If not, perhaps they’re marketing tips you should implement in 2023.
1. Create a Content Calendar
Generating a healthy mix of marketing content keeps your brand looking fresh and energized. The best way to maximize exposure on social media is by creating a content calendar: a roadmap that outlines what you’ll post and promote during a 30-, 60-, or 90-day period.
Sticking to the calendar ensures a good messaging cadence, and your audience will frequently see the content you promote. It helps to mix up the type of media you use as well. While it’s easy to incorporate pictures, graphics, and videos, utilizing clickable metadata links and PDFs when available increases the value you extend to your customers.
Brandon Breznick is cofounder and marketing strategist at Apex One Agency.
2. Leverage Multimedia Tools
A tool that every marketing team should have in its arsenal is Canva. Whether you’re using the free version or upgrade to a business license, Canva empowers teams to collaboratively design presentations, promotional graphics, social media landing pages, and so much more. Canva even released animation capabilities so you can create GIFs for web and social in seconds.
Rather than outsourcing design to external parties or always relying on a dedicated in-house resource, this is an easy, intuitive resource that anyone on your team can use to start designing today. This makes turnaround time on marketing assets faster, less expensive, and completely within your control.
Blair Rubio is VP of marketing at T1V.
3. Let Your Customers Do the Talking
Don’t overlook the impact that a case study, project profile, or success story can have. Name-dropping helps potential customers get to know the types of organizations you work with—and the type of work you do. It also lets potential customers know that there are workable solutions out there to address challenges similar to theirs, whether it’s dealing with the struggle of finding technology to support hybrid learning or integrating a nurse call system with wireless devices to improve workflow.
Ask your sales professionals to share their best customer anecdotes and get your customers to share their side of the story, too. You’ll get lots of mileage out of that case study content: feature it in newsletters, share it on social media, distribute it to potential customers, turn it into a blog, share it with an industry publication, etc.
Max Johnson is senior marketing and channel manager at NSCA.
4.Optimize Your Consultative Role
Marketing and communications initiatives play a vital role in educating customers and should consistently showcase your company as a resource. You can act as a guide for customers by offering up valuable information about new technologies, trends, industry research, best practices, and general thought leadership.
To optimize this outreach:
- Share information with customers through a mix of digital and traditional mediums
- Give presentations and guide educational sessions for customers who want to learn more about the current landscape or challenges
- Shift your message from products to education and solutions
- Provide educational resources, including handouts, videos, and links to industry information
- Identify and manage return on objective as well as return on investment
Kyle Habben is president at Electronic Contracting Company and an NSCA board member.
5.Use Social Media to Amplify Your Brand
I know, I know. (Almost) everybody does social media—and some do it better than others. The fact remains, however, that you can effectively leverage social media platforms—Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook—to put your company on the map. Not everyone consumes information in the same ways, so you need to put your messages in the channels your customers use.
Work with your team to develop a weekly schedule by looking at user data provided by social media platforms. Pinpoint your peak days and times that your users tend to look at your content and start scheduling based on that.
Once a schedule is developed, create captivating content. What’s so interesting about that new technology? Who is that new technician on your team? You’ll see an increase in engagement, and your followers will turn into a community. With the next generation already using social media for their source of news and technology, our industry needs to make sure we’re all doing our part to put our best foot forward on social media.