There’s no question that the rise of new media in the past few years has altered how businesses approach and execute their marketing strategies. The question is, how different is the ball game in a business-to-business marketing setting?
Media strategist Paula White of Whiteway Media Solutions believes it still boils down to the same basic marketing principles of knowing your target market, building lasting relationships and creating brand authenticity.
She suggests, as a first step, finding out exactly where potential clients are hanging out both in the digital world and the brick and mortar world.
“Essentially, you’re still going to have to get out there and network … find out where these companies are socializing and then be there,” said White.
Conveniently, creating a social media account with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can help businesses learn more about what their markets are doing and where they are hanging out.
For Warren Smith, managing partner at the Counsel Network, a legal recruitment firm, it’s been about recognizing the different advantages that both traditional and new media present to his particular industry.
“With Twitter, for example, there are two sides to it for us,” said Smith. “We definitely use Twitter to keep tabs on what’s going on in the market. We use it to see what our clients are doing, we use it to see what’s going on in terms of market movement and trends and issues.”
For the purposes of a recruitment firm, he’s found that online media offers a time-effectiveness never before seen in print media and quite advantageous to a business that relies on timeliness and efficiency.
“There’s a speed with which recruitment has moved to over time,” he said. “There’s an expectation that you have to be able to know your market, find your candidates and present in a fairly effective manner.”
That’s not to say, however, that there still isn’t power in traditional methods, such as print media, for these businesses, Smith said. The key is in knowing the different strengths each medium offers.
“What we use print media for … where it’s a more powerful tool for us, is to reinforce who we are, what we do and our story and what our brand is in the market. So we will run a much more branding-centric campaign there.
The firm then relies on new media, such as its Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages to get the most current postings out, which results in a quicker response time in filling client’s positions.
Along a similar line, Tracy Dallas, Total Staffing Solutions co-founder and vice-president, operations, has seen that allowing her staff to tap into their personal social media accounts creates a greater opportunity for finding the perfect candidate for her client.
[In our business], we’re searching candidates, we’re looking at people’s resumés. All these young people in the office they have hundreds and thousands of people as friends on Facebook. … They’ll reach out to their friends … and maybe find someone with that perfect skill set,” she said.
As for using traditional media, when Total Staffing Solutions was first created in Vancouver in 2006, Dallas used the most traditional method available in marketing – hitting the pavement.
“Getting myself out there was the first step,” said Dallas. That’s basically been our marketing strategy – getting out there, meeting clients, … our business has excelled because of our referrals, companies referring us to other companies,” said Dallas.
Her advice on using print media? Make sure it’s consistent.
“We know there’s no point in advertising one month here, one month there, ” she said. “You need to be consistent … if you’re going to do print, you need to do it on a monthly or weekly basis and see where it takes you from there.”
When it comes to determining the right combination of traditional and new media, White points out there is no blanket solution. Businesses must know their marketing budget and decide what’s most relevant and effective for their particular industry and spend their money accordingly.
For example, for a recruitment firm like Total Staffing Solutions, Dallas feels it’s vital to allocate funds to building a presence on an online job-board site such as Monster.com
Though membership does come at a cost, Dallas explains that it has a multitude of benefits for a recruitment firm. Among the biggest perks offered is the ability to advertise to a large pool of candidates.
“[We do] advertising in terms of posting our positions, getting our name out on the big job boards, like Monster, so people see those,” said Dallas. “Maybe it’s not a role they’re interested in at the moment but they see the company name and the logo all the way down. The more roles that we’re able to post on there, because we have an account with Monster, the better it is.”
Going beyond the usual suspects in social media, White suggests joining websites and groups that are relevant to your industry and revolve around networking, such as meetup.com and Rapid Time Networks (rapidtimenetworks.com) to make new connections.
“You may not meet the person that you’re immediately networking with as your client, but you never know what their rolodex is.”
