Industrial Technical Sales - What Is The Purpose of Your Blog?

A blog is an important part of a social media marketing plan

Does your company or organization have a blog? If so, do you know why? What is the purpose of the company blog? What is it supposed to accomplish?

Before you deep dive into this article, let me stake out the corner of the universe for which I am writing. You are a technical sales representative, with problem solving, personal contact, and technical prowess, the predominant parts of your job description. Here at CMS4i, many of our customers sell and service industrial process measurement and control equipment and instruments. Others are in the laboratory and research equipment field. As the writer, my intent is to deliver useful information and commentary to the group just described. Others may find the article useful, recognizing that the article is targeted at a trade specific group.

If you have a blog, you may have considered what the purpose of that chunk of your social media presence might be. Let's recap.

• Generate awareness and interest in your company.
• Highlight the products and services you provide.
• Drive traffic to your website or other social media properties.
• Promote the expertise and thought leadership of the organization.
• Promote the discovery of your organization by new potential customers.

With a few tweaks, your own list will probably resemble mine. That's good. There is, however, one very important goal or purpose missing from the list.

The foremost goal of your blog is to get someone to read it.

Need I say that again? Without a reader, your message is undelivered and ineffectual. None of the purpose stated above will be accomplished unless someone is sufficiently enticed or motivated to read your posted article.

How do I get people to read my blog?

 Ah, the question of the modern age! You have so much to say, so much to share, but you are just one of about a billion bloggers out there. Face it, getting traction with your blog, especially if you are not an adept writer, can be very difficult and frustrating. Writing is a craft, with competence and expertise developed over time and trial....and error.

Here are a few tips.

Actually, more than a few, if you read between the lines. Before you lean into the keyboard, give thought to some of these points I share with you.

Think like a reader first, then write. Pretend you are the reader, a customer of your company, a user of the products your company sells. If you want to write about a subject, make sure you include what the reader will want to know about that subject. You can also intermingle your message, but be sure to...

Provide the reader something of value. What constitutes value depends on the situation and your reader, but your abiding by this guiding principle will serve you well in every interaction you have with a potential customer. Some help here....entertainment has value, so does information. Inform or entertain, that should be your credo. The information you provide can have greater value if it is not readily acquired by your reader from another source. This means that your article about how your company solved a problem for a customer might be of great interest. People in the same business tend to face the same challenges. A unique story has value. Any commentary that boosts your reader's knowledge or understanding of a subject related to the accomplishment of their goals can also be valuable in gaining interest for your blog and connected social media properties. As the writer, you can also have your blog serve as a source of industry news. If you aggregate and summarize current events into a single source, that being your blog post, you have provided value by efficiently packaging up new information for your customers. You saved them some time and probably are doing for them what they haven't the time to do on their own. It's perfect, but always be mindful that....

Presentation is important. Humans are sensory beings. Yes, we can read, but we are stimulated by pictures, by color, by change. Your blog post gets a boost when a high quality interesting image is included. The image can accentuate the message in any number of ways. This is art, not science, so let your own creativity work in your favor. Beyond images, make your article easy to read. Admittedly, your audience (remember tech sales rep) is likely to be skilled at digesting the written word, but delivering an article that can be read quickly and with good comprehension will work in your favor. And, I have to say this, no spelling errors allowed. Blog post presentation is a big subject, well beyond the scope of this article. The important takeaway is to be aware that presentation counts. It counts for more than you may realize.

Blogging can be a productive part of your social media marketing effort. It is content you create yourself, portraying a message in your own unique manner, or voice. Give readers something of value and they will give your their time and attention.

Follow, comment, reach out to me with your questions. I can be contacted directly at CMS4i by putting @TomO in the message section. At CMS4i, we help small companies build their brand and web presence, so contact us anytime.

Should You Promote a Legacy Brand Name, or Move on with the New One?

How to promote a legacy brand name

Consolidation, acquisition, and merger activity among corporations can create a challenge for local marketers, such as a distributor or representative. The dilemma concerns the value in continued promotion of the legacy brand name.

Here is the scenario. You represent the small, specialized, successful manufacturer of a product. A large company with an international brand acquires the small company you represent. Once you clear the hurdle of whether the new owner will maintain the current sales channels, there is then the question of how to present and promote the new brand to your customer base. It is likely that the legacy brand name is well known in the market, but conglomerates will have interest in the promotion of their own brand which may encompass the products of numerous other companies they have acquired. Here are some things to consider.

• If the principal abandons the legacy brand name, you can still maintain a legacy brand name presence on your website and social media channels. This can help customers unaware of the brand change make a connection with your company. A legacy brand name page on your website, a blog about the brand name change, other social media posts will all help customers link the legacy brand to your company and the new brand name. Effectiveness will be attained through repeated posts about the brand name for however long it takes to establish the new brand in place of the old.
• If the principal adds their name to the legacy brand name, similar to a hyphenated surname for a spouse, your interests may be best served by promoting both names separately, as well as combined. The newly created combo name will, by itself, have little recognition in the initial stages, and brand development efforts by the acquiring company may not produce the results needed to foster your local sales and promotion efforts. Solid branding does not develop overnight. It takes time, sometimes lots of time. Figuratively hanging some legacy brand name signs on your website and social media channels will enhance search engine performance and bring visitors to your sites where a transitional move toward the new brand name can be implemented.
• If the principal maintains the legacy brand name, an example of which would be "Legacy Brand Name, a division of Big Company" or something similar, you can mostly maintain your marketing status quo. In this case, the acquiring company is placing significant value on the brand name that they purchased (smart), and you should maintain promotion of the legacy brand.

There are an unlimited number of variants to the three simple scenarios shown here. Your relationships with your principals are the lifeblood of your business. If they provide direction or guidance on how to promote a new branding, it is probably best to conform. 

Brand names that enjoy widespread recognition, good reputation, and identify with a narrow range of products or applications can have immense value. Unless there is a specific prohibition to continuing to provide a connection between your customers and principals through your company by using that legacy brand name, I generally recommend you maintain its useful presence throughout your digital marketing. Though, with a view to the future, keep in mind that younger and new entries into your potential customer pool are unlikely to share the connection strength of industry veterans to the legacy brand name. Over time, which could be years, you should transition your sales promotion to synchronize with whatever path the acquiring company uses. 

Follow, comment, contact me with your questions directly at CMS4i by putting @TomO in the message section. At CMS4i, we help small companies build their brand and web presence, so contact us anytime.

Should You Blog About Products You Don't Sell?

Sometimes, going against your long held beliefs can be helpful.

The relationships between you, my technical sales representative and industrial distributor friends, and your principals can be convoluted. Manufacturers prefer that you not handle products considered competitive with theirs, but it is inevitable that some overlap will come into play. As a work-around solution, it is common for a rep to handle only a portion of a manufacturer's product line. There are a number of other possible scenarios that may leave you authorized to sell less than the entire product mix. This creates something of a challenge when designing your website, but even more so when selecting topics for frequent blog articles.

Some blog posts come pretty close to being product advertisements, and close is generally acceptable. I keep these points in mind when I write about a product.

• Keep promotional speech minimized (preferably missing entirely)
• Tie the product to an industry practice
• Focus on technical aspects of a product or process
• Relay how it may be different
• Show how it can deliver benefits or improvements to the reader's work or process

Working toward these goals helps maintain your post as a useful and interesting piece. The goal is to provide value for the reader, netting benefit to the writer as a result of the reader's fulfillment.

You want your company to be noticed, discovered, found by individuals with common interests, since these are the people you will do business with in one form or another. If getting noticed or discovered is your goal...

Does it make sense to blog about things you do not sell, but are related to your business?

Of course it does! Remember, your goal with your social media portals is not to sell products, it is to "sell" your organization, by increasing subscribers and reinforcing their positive impressions. The more subjects you cover, with keywords for search engines to find, the better. It is useful to keep in mind that your potential customers have professional interests beyond your company's product offering. This takes a conscious effort. It is easy to myopically blog away about the products shown on the company website, and that's not entirely without merit. But there is more to write about. Being the source of interesting and useful information, being the "go-to place" for news or updates on a subject, adds tremendous social media value to your company. Here are some guidelines and ideas to consider.

• Avoid blogging about competitors directly, but be mindful of their concepts and approaches to solving customer challenges. You may be able to write about the generic concept without mentioning the competitor by name. Compare and contrast your company's approach to a similar issue.
• It can be productive to blog about facets or products of a brand that are unavailable for you to sell. For example, blog about a company's flow meters, even though you only handle their level controls. As long as you do not handle a competitive flow meter, getting the brand name out there can still be positive for you through links back to your site.
• Write about legislative and regulatory current events. There is a continuing flood of this information being released by federal, state, and local jurisdictions. Keeping up with it is difficult for your customers. Your position as an information source can yield positive benefits through followers and subscribers.
• For industrial settings, cyber security and safety are looming issues with universal impact. Find good sources of information and share them through your social media.
• Share an original viewpoint from someone in your company. It does not have to be the CEO. People that work in cubicles, people that turn wrenches, may have some very interesting and valuable things to say. I recommend you work an article such as this as an interview. Getting people to talk to you is generally much easier than getting them to write for you.
• Go completely off topic once in a while. If you have something to share that would be of interest to your industry or audience, but may not be directly related to your company's business line, publish it. This should be an infrequent event, to avoid having your blog appear unfocused.
• Write about things you do not sell, but are used by your potential customers. Your article can be non-partisan and provide insight not usually delivered by those that sell the particular product.

I think you see it now. The purpose of your writing is to serve the reader. If you serve the reader well, the reader will read another article or click on one of your links, increasing their recognition of your organization. That is your goal.

Follow, comment, reach out to me with your questions. I can be contacted directly at CMS4i by putting @TomO in the message section. At CMS4i, we help small companies build their brand and web presence, so contact us anytime.

Do It Today! - Review Those Inbound Links!

Let me quickly establish, once again, the target audience for my articles. I write for technical sales professionals and marketers, modest in size, that operate in the commercial and industrial arenas. A more focused description can be found in my previous article Signs You Might Be On The Wrong Social Media Marketing Track.

Two primary functions of your social media efforts are:

• Discovery, by providing multiple paths through which your organization can be found on the internet.
• Presence, which can be thought of as your public facing digital business front.

An important part of both is the inbound links that bring visitors to your web pages from web pages that are not yours. If your company represents or distributes for ZZZ Manufacturing (a fictitious company), ZZZ might have a link on their site that leads to your site. This makes sense because your company is a vendor source from which ZZZ products can be purchased. The link to your site on ZZZ's site is an inbound link to your site. These can have substantial value because potential customers may be directed to your website, even though they were not specifically searching for your company.

You should review known inbound links on a regular basis. How often you do it should be a function of what you find. If there are numerous errors or omissions, frequency should be higher until everything appears in order. There are some basic things you should do.

• If possible, have an inbound link from every company for which you sell products or services.
• Where inbound links exist, make sure they go to the correct landing page on your site.
• Take steps to try and get incorrect or missing inbound links remedied. This can be challenging in some cases, but the effort is worth the investment of your time.
• Inbound links should generally land on your website pages that will not be deleted or have their URL (the page address) or subject changed when your website is periodically updated. It is possible to map old web page URLs to a new site, but if the operation is omitted the links could be lost forever.
• Reciprocate to those providing inbound links to your site with a link from your site to theirs. Many of you already have examples of these on your sites (a link to the website of a company your sell for).

While your are checking for inbound links from your represented companies, review how they might portray your company on their site. If there is a listing for your distributor firm, click on every link shown and review what your potential customers will see. One of our customers was listed on their principal's site along with a click that would ostensibly show the distributor's place of business. The site did not contain actual photos of the distributor's place of business, but used a sort of Google Earth setup to show what was located at the address provided for the business. In this particular case, the map service returned and displayed a picture of a vintage looking donut shop, clearly not our customer's place of business. This is an example of the potential inaccuracies you need to discover and take steps to have corrected.

Do it today. Have someone else at your company do it today. If you put it off, it's too easy to forget. Inbound links and listing information about your company will be the first impression some have of your business. You need that impression to be as positive as you can make it.

Follow, comment, contact me with your questions. I can be contacted directly at CMS4i by putting @TomO in the message section. At CMS4i, we help small companies build their brand and web presence, so contact us anytime.

Are You A Marketer?

The spark of a new idea

I write for a somewhat limited, or should I say targeted, segment of the business world. Technical sales firms and professionals conduct their business with a high level of personal contact. The products sold by these professionals generally require consultation between buyer and seller to establish the suitability of the product for its intended purpose. Technical sales is strictly a B2B endeavor, with customers relying on recommendations and expertise that the sales rep brings to the relationship. I write for them, to build their comprehension of modern social media marketing activities and how their business can benefit from thoughtful application of these techniques.

Are you a salesperson, or are you a marketer?

How would you answer this question? Your job title probably implies that you are a salesperson. When hired, the job description likely focused on bringing in business, getting purchase orders. Your performance is quantified in terms directly related to revenue generation. You may feel that marketing is an admin or office function, while you are the one in the field making the personal contact necessary to secure an order. So, are you a salesperson, or are you a marketer?

The answer to the question is .... Yes.

You, as a technical sales rep, are responsible for securing business for your company. You are also an integral part of two brands; one of the firm that employs you and the other of the company represented by your firm. Everything you do creates an impression on someone that relates back to those two brands. That is what makes you a marketer, too.

Keeping your marketing function in mind, capitalizing on it, will help you boost your personal and company presence in the minds of your customers. The goal of your marketing efforts is to have your customer base associate and think of you whenever they think of the types of products you sell. To the extent that you build and nurture that association throughout your customer base, you will succeed. Ever hear the adage "It's not what you know, it's who you know"? Remember this....

It's not what you know or who you know, it's who knows you.

Certainly, if your products are poor quality or do not meet customer needs, you are not going to do well. The reality, though, is that most products are of adequate quality and do fulfill the needs of their targeted customer. As a product specialist, you should be adept at matching your product offering to your customer's application, also at differentiating your products and their attributes from those of your competitors. That is tech sales 101, and there is one significant limitation to that activity. It relies upon the timely connection of the sales rep and the customer, and it is difficult to impossible for the sales rep to know when the time is right and to get an opportunity to make the connection with the customer.

What makes the difference between getting the order and not getting the order?

 And the answer is....being known, at least being discoverable. This is where your marketing efforts, especially those on social media, serve to directly boost your revenue generation. Conduct social media activities that make you visible and showcase your professional skill, knowledge, and interest in your industry. Serious customers want to deal with serious sales reps. Be persistent in your promotional activities because the impact of a single activity can fade quickly. Make social media marketing a part of your personal business plan, or your firm's plan, to increase sales performance. Here are some points to start you thinking about your own plan.

• If you do not have a social media presence, make one. Start with Twitter (What You Should Be Doing With Your Twitter Account Everyday, Making Twitter Part of Your Success - You Gotta Do It ), then expand to LinkedIn (LinkedIn - The Value You May Not Realize), Facebook, and others you select on your own.
• Produce or find content (articles, books, pictures, videos, and more) that are interesting and useful to your customer base. Whether your customers may have already seen the article is not important.  That they associate your name with interesting and useful content is.
• Be consistent in your posting. You want your customers to see what you are doing, so you need to post well and post often.
• Follow other social media sites and personalities that are relevant to your industry. It is a good way to see examples of valuable content, but be sure to seek out some unique sources of your own.
• Find and follow customers with whom you have a justifiable business relationship. Be aware that on some sites, like Twitter, it's generally acceptable to follow anyone and you do not need their permission to do so. Other sites may require the permission of the other party to create a connection and you may be looked upon unfavorably for your exuberant efforts to connect with people who do not recognize you.
• Mention some aspect of your social media presence to your customers when you speak with them. If you want to send them a useful article that was mentioned in a conversation, send a link to your Twitter or other post that contains the article. Your goal is to build connections with potential customers that will expose them to your posts, building your stature as an industry professional.

We are always in search of ways to turn the slope of our sales revenue line upward. Being the tech rep that is contacted to help solve a problem or participate in planning an upcoming expansion is what we all crave. Incorporating an effective social media strategy into your personal business plan has a high probability of getting you known and keeping you top of mind, producing increasing returns for you over an extended time. You are a salesperson. You are a marketer.

Follow, comment, contact me with your questions. I can be contacted directly at CMS4i by putting @TomO in the message section. At CMS4i, we help small companies build their brand and web presence, so contact us anytime.

Social Media Marketing: You're Not There Yet?

Social media marketing has many moving parts

Social media marketing can be an amorphous and vexing subject for many small business operators. After all, it's probably not your trade, along with tuba playing. You have specific skills which, combined with an avid pursuit of success and your own secret business sauce, move your business forward, day after day. Staying current within the business environment is important, as you do not want to be branded as a paleolithic company, flogging away with methods and means long abandoned by other market or industry participants.

For perspective, some clarification about my target audience. This article, while useful in a general sense to all interested in social media marketing, is directed at smaller firms that engage in technical sales. Technical sales is not merely the sale of technical products, though that may be part of it. It is the art and practice of selling products requiring consultation between buyer and seller to assure that the delivered product or service will meet the requirements and expectations of the buyer.

How does this impact the applicability or focus of the article?

My viewpoint reflects that of a typical technical sales professional or firm. Many firms and individuals engaged in technical sales are small and localized, often acting as representatives or distributors for larger national or global brands. The goal for the technical seller's social media activities is to create lasting business connections on a one-to-one basis. This differs from what many larger or non-technical selling companies desire. Their objective is to create a one-to-many connection that is generally of an anonymous nature and without much desire to forge a lasting beneficial business relationship. In a non-technical sales instance, customers can obtain all information necessary to make a purchase without any personal contact with the seller. Technical sales pros, because of their size, localized focus, and method for delivering value, benefit from social media activities in a manner that can differ from the more conventionally accepted thought. As the reader, keep this viewpoint in mind.

Technical sales pros should recognize two overarching things about social media marketing.

Social media presence will be an increasingly important element of business success.

Resources that may not currently exist in your organization will be required to implement an effective social media strategy.


For a business owner or operator, the first statement raises the question of whether theirs will be a business of the future, or one of the past. No longer are social media and internet based marketing cutting edge. They are now the plain vanilla mainstream standard. Your aging customer base is already being replaced by individuals with little to no experience dealing with printed promotional materials, supplier directories, and other bygone methods for gaining brand recognition, including static billboard-like websites. If your company is not actively pursuing the creation and maintenance of an effective web presence, let this be your final warning.

Get with the program or face brand oblivion.

"Resources that may not currently exist in your organization will be required to implement an effective social media strategy." Let's break that down some, as there are still many of you technical sales pros out there who have yet to fully digest the social media marketing concept.

To be effective, a social media marketing endeavor requires continuous nurturing. New and interesting content must be located or created. Analytics should be gathered and assessed for their applicability and usefulness. There are innumerable small tasks and considerations that combine to make a successful program.

Two basic resources are needed to launch and maintain a useful social media presence. One is time, the other is money. It is possible to execute a useful strategy with any mix of these two resources. A candid and careful evaluation of the skills available within your organization, as well as the available budget for marketing, will move you toward the best resource allocation. 

Marketing activities are time sensitive

An obvious solution for the social media marketing challenge is to outsource the whole program and let someone else handle it. Your function would be to select an appropriate vendor and evaluate the general results, assuring your company's brand is being promoted well and that a solid social media presence is maintained. A distinct advantage of outsourcing is that it will detract little from the revenue generating activities of those currently on staff. Outsourcing is less disruptive and allows you to move forward quickly.

For most small organizations, the decision to save on direct expenditure and run the social media operations using existing staff is a perilous one. 

Effective social media plans are developed and executed by marketers. 

It is essential that social media be done well and done continuously. Otherwise, results are likely to be minimal to negative. Yes, it is conceivable to get negative promotional results from poorly conceived or executed social media activities. Turning over the day to day social media marketing activities to the only person at the firm with a Twitter account does not qualify as good decision making. Rigorous scheduling discipline is needed to maintain the quality and currency of the content, and to complete tasks at times that will produce good promotional results. Creativity, along with a marketing skill set, are also traits of a successful candidate for this position. Selecting a staff member to accomplish all that is necessary, without assuring they have the proper skill set and available time, sets the probability for failure higher than that for success.

Get your social media marketing going in the right direction

If you have not yet started a serious social media promotional effort, or feel your program is lacking in impact, it may be time to create a new effort. Learn from what you have already done and make your next social media marketing campaign more successful. If you are starting from ground zero, proceed slowly and gain knowledge as you progress. Avoid making big moves until you gain some experience.

Follow, comment, contact me with your questions. I can be contacted directly at CMS4i by putting @TomO in the message section. At CMS4i, we help small operators build their brand and web presence, so contact us anytime.