What I have heard the most from my fellow marketers is the statement “use the social media or be left out of something big.” I am always cynical about this statement, especially in the B2B environment. If you are operating in a B2B environment, you have probably noticed that everyone is caught up in this new trend. Before you dive into the social media, and believe it will fix all your problems, ask yourself the following questions:

1.  Who are your clients / customers?
Many of our clients are operating in a very niche market, with only one or two customers. Why waste resources and time on the cyber space, if you can have an old fashioned face to face communication with them, especially when the client prefers it this way.

2. Do you have resources for it?
Social media will help you to generate leads, but only if you do it properly. If you are not conveying the right message to your customers, the chances are you are conveying the WRONG message. Frankly, if you are conveying the wrong message, you are better off doing nothing at all. What does it take to do it properly? Marketing specialists on social media, time, and money. Many people think social media is cheap. Don’t get me wrong, it is. Social media a free platform for businesses, but marketing specialists and their time will cost you money, just like any other marketing campaign.

3. What is your short-term business objective?
Will social media help you drive sales? It will. But if you want it to happen tomorrow, forget about it. Social media is a very cost-effective channel for you to reach prospective clients; it is not a salesman however. Even if you are using the social media properly, it will take some time before it generates positive ROIs. Why? Because “creating transactional opportunities on the web takes trust, but trust takes time to establish” (Chris Brogran, Co-author of Trust Agent Says). If you are thinking of using it to drive short-term sales, there are better methods to leverage your efforts, such as direct mail, price incentives and enhanced sales support. 

I am not suggesting that social media is not good for B2B, instead I am suggesting that your reason to use social media shouldn’t be “because everyone else is doing it!”

If you find your situation is not as outlined above, or you believe you have a very unique experience with social media in the B2B world, let us know.

Throughout life we have tough decisions to make and we can only partially evaluate their success, even in hindsight. Why? Because the variables that circle each decision are infinite in number.  Running a business is like reading a good mystery novel with the last few pages missing. We do what we can to figure things out on the way, working hard to achieve the best results possible.

Six years ago we took a new business approach at Palmer. We stopped taking the order for the most part and started to discover more about our clients and let that knowledge drive the marketing we deliver. In our case, it has led to deeper relationships with our customers, better overall results and has given us a more sustainable business model.

Everywhere I turn customers are sharing with me that they are up against a “price is everything” environment. People are switching for pennies and loyalty isn’t what it used to be. They point to the economy, the change in decision makers, and the ease of access to competitive information through the web. This mix of variables has changed the game we’re all in dramatically. We need to reset our thinking and restart our engines to take us from “how business was done” to “how business is done”.

There have been a few times I’ve jumped from the frying pan into the fire at first, only to have it turn into very positive experiences.  Like creating a good design, if you change one element you always have to follow that change with further moves to rebalance the big picture. I believe this to be a universal truth.

 If you are in the process of making changes, trust your instincts, proceed with caution and pay attention to the new signs on your journey. There’s bound to be twists and turns you aren’t expecting but that doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong road, just a new one. From my experience, not making moves is a much more dangerous position to take.

Today there are so many choices including custom USBs with 8GB memory to stainless steel water bottles to high end brand name golf shirts like Greg Norman and Nike. You can now logo everything from sunglasses to digital frames to measuring tapes to kitchenware.

Interestingly enough, writing instruments are still considered the most commonly used promotional products (about 54%) followed by shirts, caps and bags.

The average length of time people keep an item is 7 months and the reason they have kept it was due primarily to its usefulness.

Bags were reported to be used most frequently, on average 9 times a month, and delivered the most impressions, with 1,038 per month on average.

Analysts have now established a “cost per impression (CPI)” and not surprisingly, promotional products are the least expensive cost per impression at $.004 cents. The CPI for a national magazine is $0.033, a newspaper ad is $0.0129, a prime time TV ad is $0.019, a cable TV ad is $0.007, a syndicated TV ad is $0.006 and a spot radio ad is $0.005.

Customers should keep this in mind when they are considering advertising options. Promotional products are still a proven method to increase brand exposure and drive sales at a reasonable cost. They continue to be part of the integrated marketing solution we deliver here at Palmer Marketing.