Digital Marketing
Marketing & PR

How Print Collateral Can Complement Your Digital Marketing Strategy

In a world dominated by digital marketing, print collateral remains a powerful tool in the marketer's arsenal. When used strategically, print can enhance digital campaigns, increase engagement, and create a cohesive brand experience. This blog explores the symbiotic relationship between print and digital marketing and offers practical tips on integrating print collateral into your digital strategy.


Understanding the Role of Print in a Digital World:

While digital marketing provides speed and analytics, print adds a tangible dimension that can significantly boost recall and response rates. Print collateral, from brochures to business cards, offers a physical connection to a brand, which can be especially impactful in a digital-first world.


1. Enhancing Brand Presence with Consistency:

A consistent brand image across digital and print mediums builds trust and reinforces your message. Ensure your print materials mirror the aesthetic and tone of your digital presence. This consistency helps solidify your brand identity and makes your marketing efforts more recognizable and effective.


2. Using Print to Drive Digital Engagement:

Print collateral can be a direct conduit to your digital platforms. Including QR codes on printed materials, such as flyers and posters, can bridge the gap between offline and online worlds by directing customers to your website, social media pages, or digital campaigns. This integration not only increases your digital traffic but also enhances the interactive experience of your print media.


3. Targeted Direct Mail Campaigns:

Leverage data from your digital marketing efforts to implement highly targeted direct mail campaigns. Personalization, which can be as simple as printing a recipient's name on a postcard, significantly increases engagement rates. By using insights gained from online behaviors, marketers can customize print materials to match the interests and needs of individual consumers, creating a highly personalized touch point.


4. Print Collateral at Digital-Driven Events:

At trade shows or conferences, which are often promoted through digital channels, having compelling print collateral can help your booth stand out. High-quality brochures, informative handouts, and branded merchandise serve as physical takeaways that can remind attendees of your brand long after the event is over.


5. Measuring the Impact of Print in Digital Campaigns:

Integrating print into your digital strategy allows for unique tracking opportunities. Use custom URLs and QR codes on your print materials to track their effectiveness and understand how they contribute to your overall marketing goals. This data can inform future campaigns, helping to refine both print and digital strategies.


Conclusion

Integrating print collateral into your digital marketing strategy offers a unique opportunity to engage with your audience on multiple levels. The tactile nature of print, combined with the broad reach and analytics of digital marketing, creates a robust, multi-channel approach that can lead to increased brand awareness, engagement, and ultimately, conversions. As we move forward, the fusion of print and digital will continue to evolve, offering new and exciting ways to connect with audiences. Reach out to our team today to learn how our integrated print and digital marketing strategies can help your brand and drive meaningful results.


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Inbound Marketing
Marketing & PR

Inbound Marketing 101: An Introduction for Beginners

Inbound marketing is a strategic approach used by businesses to attract customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. While traditional marketing methods like cold-calling, print ads, or billboards interrupt your audience with content they don’t always want, inbound marketing forms connections they’re looking for and solves problems they already have.


Why Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing has become increasingly popular in the digital age for several reasons:

  • Cost-effective: It is often more budget-friendly compared to traditional marketing techniques.
  • Higher engagement: Provides content that meets the needs and interests of potential customers.
  • Builds authority: Helps your business establish credibility and authority in your industry.
  • Customer-centric: Focuses on pulling interested customers to your business naturally, rather than pushing your message onto disinterested audiences.


The Four Stages of Inbound Marketing

  • Attract: Draw the right people with valuable content and conversations that establish you as a trusted advisor with whom they want to engage.
  • Convert: Present these leads with opportunities to provide their information in a way that’s non-intrusive and natural.
  • Close: Use tools like email marketing, CRM, lead scoring, and automation to nurture and convert these leads into customers.
  • Delight: Engage with your customers at a deep level to encourage repeat business, loyalty, and referrals.


Key Components of Inbound Marketing

  • Content Creation: Create content that answers your potential customers' basic questions and needs, and share that content far and wide.
  • Lifecycle Marketing: Recognize that people go through stages as they interact with your company, and that each stage requires different marketing actions.
  • Personalization: Tailor your content to the wants and needs of the people who are viewing it.
  • Multi-channel: Inbound marketing is multi-channel by nature because it approaches people where they are, in the channel where they want to interact with you.


Tools and Techniques

  • SEO: Search engine optimization is crucial for enhancing visibility in search engine results.
  • Blogging: Regular, helpful blog posts that answer your customers' questions and needs.
  • Social Media: Use social media platforms to share your content and engage with your audience.
  • Email Campaigns: Segmented emails targeted to specific needs of the audience at different stages in the buying funnel.


Conclusion

Inbound marketing represents a shift in the way we do business. It’s a holistic, data-driven approach that leverages content on your website to attract buyers researching your products and services online. By aligning the content you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight over time.

This approach is not only efficient but also builds a foundation of trust by offering potential customers the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your existing inbound marketing tactics, understanding these basics is your first step toward success. This brief overview has merely introduced the tip of the iceberg of inbound marketing. Contact us to learn more and discover how our expertise can help elevate your business.


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Affiliate Marketing 101
Marketing & PR

Affiliate Marketing 101: How to Boost Your Online Sales with Strategic Partnership

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy that involves a partnership between a merchant and an affiliate marketer. The merchant provides the affiliate with unique links, banners, or other promotional materials to use in their marketing efforts. The affiliate then promotes the merchant’s products or services on their website, blog, or social media channels. Ultimately this earns them a commission for each sale or conversion that is generated through their affiliate link.

The commission rate tends to vary depending on the merchant and the product. It can be a percentage of the sale, or it can be a fixed amount. Which will depend on the marketer, and who they’re working with.

When all is said and done, affiliate marketing is a popular and effective way for businesses to increase their sales and reach a wider audience. At the same time, such marketing provides affiliates with an opportunity to earn income by promoting products they believe in.

History of Affiliate Marketing: It Goes Back Further Than You Think

The concept of affiliate marketing dates back to the 1980s when William J. Tobin launched a program called PC Flowers & Gifts in 1989. This program was essentially an early form of affiliate marketing, where Tobin paid a commission to other websites that referred customers to his website to purchase flowers and gifts. You might say affiliate marketing stretches back to the dawn of the internet.

That said, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that affiliate marketing began to gain widespread popularity. Amazon is often credited with popularizing affiliate marketing when it launched its Associates Program in 1996. This program allowed website owners and bloggers to promote Amazon’s products and earn a commission on any sales generated through their affiliate links.

Around the same time, other companies began to launch their own affiliate programs, including CDNow, which launched its program in 1994, and eBay, which launched its program in 1995. By the late 1990s, affiliate marketing had become a popular way for businesses to market their products and for individuals to earn income online.

Over the years, affiliate marketing has continued to evolve, with new technologies and platforms making it easier for businesses and affiliates to connect and work together. Today, affiliate marketing is a multi-billion-dollar industry, with businesses across a wide range of industries using affiliate marketing as a key part of their marketing strategy.

What Affiliate Marketing Looks Like Today

Affiliate marketing is a thriving industry that continues to grow year after year. According to a report by Statista, current estimates put global affiliate marketing expenditures about $8.2 billion for the 2022 business year. This growth is fueled by the increasing popularity of e-commerce, as well as the growing number of businesses that are incorporating affiliate marketing into their marketing strategies.

One of the reasons why affiliate marketing has become so popular is because it is a cost-effective way for businesses to promote their products or services. Rather than spending money on traditional advertising, businesses can partner with affiliates who promote their products to their own audiences, earning a commission on any sales or leads generated. Basically, it hones the “sights” of marketing outreach, allowing for greater outreach accuracy overall.

Furthermore, affiliates can reap numerous benefits from affiliate marketing, such as generating revenue by endorsing products or services they genuinely support. They don’t have to spend substantial resources to create their own products or services.

Technological advancements have also made it easier for businesses and affiliates to work together. Affiliate networks, such as ShareASale and Commission Junction, have made it easier for businesses to connect with affiliates, track sales and commissions, and manage their affiliate programs. Ultimately, increasingly available data made tangible through affiliate marketing enables more efficient outreach. It’s a positive feedback loop of improvement.

Overall, the status of affiliate marketing is strong, and it is expected to continue to grow in popularity as more businesses look for cost-effective ways to promote their products and more individuals seek opportunities to earn income online. Where one group has a need, another can supply a solution. Everybody wins.

Benefits Merchants See Through Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a well-known marketing strategy that allows businesses to partner with affiliates who promote their products or services in exchange for a commission on sales or leads generated. There are several benefits of affiliate marketing for the merchant, including:

  1. Increased reach and visibility: By partnering with affiliates, merchants can reach a wider audience that they may not have been able to reach on their own. Affiliates often have their own established audience and can promote the merchant’s products to them, thereby increasing brand visibility.
  2. Cost-effective: Affiliate marketing can be a cost-effective way to promote products or services, as merchants only pay affiliates a commission when a sale or lead is generated. This means that merchants do not have to spend money on advertising upfront, and only pay for results.
  3. Better targeting: Affiliates are often experts in a particular niche or industry, and as such, they can promote products to a highly targeted audience. This means that the merchant’s products are more likely to be seen by people who are interested in them, increasing the likelihood of sales.
  4. Increased credibility: When affiliates promote a merchant’s products, it can increase the credibility of the merchant. This is because people often trust recommendations from people they know or respect, and affiliates are often seen as experts in their field.
  5. Easy to track: Affiliate marketing is easy to track, as merchants can use unique affiliate links to track sales and leads generated by affiliates. This means that merchants can easily see which affiliates are generating the most sales and adjust their affiliate program accordingly. Overall, affiliate marketing can be a highly effective marketing strategy for merchants, helping them to reach a wider audience, increase sales, and build brand credibility; all while being cost-effective and easy to track.

Considerable Benefits for the Affiliate Marketer

Nowadays, affiliate marketing has become a widely adopted marketing approach, enabling individuals or businesses (or affiliates) to promote a merchant’s products or services in return for earning a commission on sales or leads generated. There are several benefits of affiliate marketing for the affiliate marketer, including:

  1. Passive income: Affiliate marketing allows affiliates to earn passive income by promoting a merchant’s products or services. Once an affiliate has created content promoting a product or service, they can continue to earn commissions on any sales or leads generated from that content, even if they are not actively promoting it.
  2. No need for product creation: As an affiliate marketer, there is no need to create your own products or services to sell. You can simply promote other people’s products or services and earn a commission on any sales or leads generated.
  3. Flexibility: Affiliate marketing allows for flexibility in terms of working hours and location. As long as you have an internet connection, you can promote products or services from anywhere in the world and at any time.
  4. Low startup costs: Affiliate marketing can be started with very little money, as there is no need to create your own products or services, and most affiliate programs are free to join.
  5. High earning potential: Depending on the commission rate and the merchant’s product or service, affiliate marketing can be a highly lucrative way to earn income. Affiliates who are able to generate a high volume of sales or leads can earn significant commissions.
  6. Skill development: Affiliate marketing requires a range of skills, including content creation, SEO, social media marketing, and email marketing. By engaging in affiliate marketing, affiliates can develop and refine these skills, which can be valuable for future business ventures. As noted, it’s a positive feedback loop.

Overall, affiliate marketing can be a highly rewarding way for affiliates to earn income, offering flexibility, low startup costs, high earning potential, and opportunities for skill development.

The Future of Affiliate Marketing: Opportunities and Challenges Ahead

IoT Marketing is excited to offer a new partnership program that’s the best-paying affiliate program in the industry! Do you know people in the IoT, IT, Telecom, or technology industries? Groups? Resellers?

Do you know people who need to network at more industry-related events?

Help them out by giving them access to immersive experiences featuring industry leaders as speakers and the biggest brands in attendance; all without the cost of expensive travel! This makes it an easy decision for them and an even easier sale for you.

IoT Marketing affiliates now earn a 10% commission for each sponsor and advertiser sale they make. Commissions are paid out monthly and recurring for any sale made on a subscription-based product! Contact us here to learn more about our industry-leading options in affiliate marketing.

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Overcome Sales Draught
Marketing & PR

IoT Marketing Tips: How to Overcome a Sales Drought

Every IoT marketing team will experience a dip in sales and it is important to understand the best ways to bounce back from a sales drought. The lack of sales opportunities does not have to be a disaster. Instead, it can be a great learning experience that can help you in the present and future. A dry period in sales is an excellent time to experiment and try new sales techniques.

The Internet of Things (IoT) technology is a popular trend in the IT world that has also experienced the usual highs and lows of a sales cycle. Understanding these cycles can help keep your company growing at a steady rate without any dips in activity.

Here are just a few mistakes that you need to avoid and the best ways to bounce back stronger than ever:

Don’t Be Anxious

Experiencing a drop in sales over an extended amount of time can cause anxiety and unrest. Many anxious salespeople overcompensate at each sales opportunity, which makes it even harder to attract new clients. Learning to stay calm will not only improve your well-being but make it much easier to climb out of a dry sales period. Allowing anxiety to control your actions will only make it more challenging to complete sales and creates an even more stressful work environment.

Avoid Buying Lists

No one enjoys receiving unsolicited spam that quickly fills their inbox on a daily basis. As you may know, buying email lists will produce a high quantity but low-quality amount of leads. Many potential clients consider this form of advertising as spam and it can do more harm than good. Mass emailing is typically not worth the time and effort, as the costs can quickly add up without any results.

Limit Discounting Offers

Everyone enjoys a discount, but it is best to offer them only on a limited basis. Constant discounts attract the wrong clients and can significantly reduce the amount of profit of any IoT marketing scheme. While periodical discounts may be worthwhile, the vast majority of the time it is best to offer your services at a steady price that is both good for you and your clients.

Experiment with New Ideas

One of the best ways to attract new customers is through continual experiments that can transform your company from a dry sales period to an overabundance of quality sales leads. Regularly update your email and call scripts to create a fresh encounter with each potential client. On the other hand, using the same techniques repeatedly will make the sales process much less effective and stale. Experiment with new sales pitches to understand which are the most effective in specific situations. Over time, you will be to create a compelling sales pitch that can be the catalyst in growing your consumer base.

Abundance Mindset

One of the best ways to avoid a sales slump is maintaining an abundance mindset. An abundance mindset will keep you motivated to constantly look for new sales leads and avoid making common mistakes. Instead of being disappointed over a missed sales opportunity, you can quickly bounce back because you know there are many more sales opportunities available.

Wrapping It All Up

The use of these IoT marketing techniques can be the difference between a successful or unsuccessful company. Taking the necessary time to avoid these common mistakes can help you grow your consumer base and avoid entering a sales slump. As you know, the IT world is extremely competitive and it is important to learn the sales techniques that work best for your company. Over time, you will create a steady growth pattern for your company by avoiding these common mistakes and taking advantage of each sales opportunity.

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Strengthening Your IoT Marketing Efforts
Marketing & PR

Strengthen Your IoT Marketing Efforts with Three Effective Closing Strategies

IoT marketing endeavors are going to be more successful if the salespeople using them are informed regarding the best closing strategies. These strategies must be practiced and honed with relevant data. That in mind, three strategies that can help you attain more effective closing include:

  • The inoffensive/logical close
  • Self-convincing
  • Client-initiated closure

1. The Inoffensive/Logical Close

This is an IoT marketing technique which works best with clients that are near the “type A” personality— they push forward, they weigh the facts, and they make the most informed choices they can. What salespeople will do with this one is start by going over the conversation they’ve already had with the prospective client. They’re reading back the client’s order, basically. Since the sale hasn’t closed, after the client agrees that the salesperson has properly covered all needs, then they ask a few questions designed to logically demonstrate in the prospective client’s mind why going with the offered IoT services is the most sensible thing to do. Those questions are something like these:

  • “Do you think I understand your business and what you’re working toward?”
  • “Does the plan we’ve come up with seem like it’s going to fit in with your company’s goals?”
  • “Have you put together an equally effective alternative?”
  • “Should the demonstration we give live up to our conversation, would you like to enter into a partnership with us?”

The summation question comes off as suggestive without being forceful, allowing the client to make the decision themselves— and based in sound logic. For this to work, the salesperson must actually understand the business and the business’ aims, design an IoT plan that will meet those goals with the greatest effectiveness possible, and one that’s more effective than the majority of alternatives.

2. Self-Convincing with a “1 in 10” Scale

This one works more with potentially passive clients more likely to sit on a proposal for a long time and forget about it. Basically, the salesperson asks the client which ranking— on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being “end the call” and 10 being “let’s sign now”— the client feels what the presentation deserves. This must be done at the end of the “pitch.” If the client says anything under a seven, something has gone wrong. Going forward in a “positive” way may not be possible and it could be time to end the call. But if the client says seven or higher, the next question should be something to the effect of: “So high! That’s a surprise. What makes you rate us that high?”

At this point, the client must go through, mentally, that which prompted them to give a 70%+ rating. They’re re-confirming their positive considerations about your IoT business. When they’re finished, the next question should be something like: “You do certainly sound more pleased than I expected, but why haven’t you given us a ten rating, then?”

At this point, the client can safely voice objections and your salesperson can match them as best as possible. Once that’s done, if the client is ready to close, then close them. But if the salesperson wasn’t able to talk them up to a 10/10 rating, the next strategy is to ask the client of the benefits of your IoT company outweighs the detriments. It’s important to establish prospective fallout beforehand. Do it right and you can get on to signing the contract.

3. Client-Initiated Closure: Perfect Performance

Design a technique for salespeople to use which helps them design a template that demonstrates numerical advantages for clients. Use averages among existing clientele to help design the template. Once familiar with it, the salespeople can cohesively demonstrate value and convenience to prospective clients. If they do well enough, the client will ask something like: “Where do I sign?” And that’s a perfect close.

Closing More Clients Through IoT Sales

IoT marketing should be well-informed with facts regarding the benefits of the Internet of Things. Those facts should be molded into a framework and then presented to varying clients in ways which fit their personality types and demeanor, as well as the businesses they represent. This kind of strategy will increase successful closure.

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IoT
Marketing & PR

In the Eyes of a Customer: IoT Marketing and Sales

Why do potential customers always seem to find salespeople so distasteful? Even if the product is rock solid and the service is skillful and honest, prospects still look at your employees as rogues and thieves looking to cheat them out of their money. IoT marketing offers further challenges when trying to get through to a customer. Using multiple channels for closing sales improves your chances of selling customers on new technologies.

Why Customers Make You the Enemy

Selling is a battle of wills. No matter what your company offers or how beneficial the product, the average prospect expects the worst. They believe salespeople only care about money. In their minds, your employees don’t care what they sell so long as they get their commission checks.

Your Internet of Things sales force must approach each customer as carefully as possible. The technology continues to develop. Many businesses don’t know or understand the details of these latest trends in connectivity, though. Considering that fact, they might look at your company with an even greater degree of distrust. To them, companies selling emergent technologies don’t care about the customer. Profit margins are the only things that matter.

Overcoming Challenges

Thankfully, a number of solutions exist when overcoming sales challenges. When in doubt, it pays to get another person involved. Find someone not specializing in sales. The prospect has spoken to a salesperson already. Let others use their expertise to build a different kind of rapport.

Contacting someone such as a CEO or VP of Sales lends more weight to the relationship. To a potential customer, these people represent the company as a whole. Their interests lie in making sure the entire company succeeds which can only happen by meeting customers’ needs. Those in senior positions don’t have anyone’s commission check in mind.

Prospective clients might not always distrust salespeople. They may avoid purchasing if they have an issue with features, too. In these instances, seek outside help from customer support staff or engineers. Let them reach out and explore what a customer needs. Providing additional information about products and services can help set a prospect’s mind at ease. Like everyone, they want to have all the facts before making any purchase.

Internal sales support can fail. At times, your sales staff need to reach out to prospects who didn’t choose your company. Take this opportunity to figure out why they chose to go a different route for their solutions. These answers can help you tailor your IoT marketing approach to customers in the future. They can also help you make sure that prospects become satisfied clients.

Building Trust

Salespeople may only utilize these techniques when a customer proves difficult to convince. Tapping into these resources builds business no matter how a potential sale goes. Reach out to people throughout your company when working with clients. If they decided to go with a unique or complex feature, have a customer specialist proactively offer assistance should they need it. Enlist higher-ups to write short emails thanking clients for their business. Customers want to know that your company appreciates them.

These tactics work especially well when the sale takes a team effort. You built the initial relationship with a customer. However, having others there who can help gives your new client peace of mind. They want to know that they can rely on your company regardless of who they talk to or what they need. These simple gestures build trust and rapport.

Conclusion

Sales teams specializing in new technologies face unique challenges. Prospects view these salespeople with suspicion and distrust. Effective IoT marketing makes the process easier. Your company should always provide as much information to clients as possible. Doing removes the stereotype of the commission-driven salesperson. It also shows potential clients that you want to make sure they get the right products and services.

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Building Relationships
Marketing & PR

Unlock the Potential of IoT Marketing by Building Relationships

As time goes on, more and more smart systems will be introduced into daily life, which is why it’s so important that you spend time to develop your IoT marketing strategies now. The Internet of Things is a revolutionary method of introducing new services and products to a networked world, connecting devices, people, and objects. This technology affects everything that people do, whether in education, leisure, health and fitness, business, or government.

The Importance of Building Relationships

IoT has influenced and changed the way global companies conduct business, but one thing remains the same: building trusting relationships that lead to sales. Even in this connected world with its remarkable array of smart devices, you still need to make a personal connection with your prospects. If your sales leads trust and relate to you, then you help them relax and engage their minds and emotions. Building rapport with your prospective clients is the first step in the sales process.

5 Steps to Building People Skills

With the convergence of IoT technology, people are disconnecting with each other. The result is that they yearn for personalized attention, understanding, and trust in their lives, especially in a technology-centric age. Once your prospects relate to you, they are more open to your ideas and suggestions, which is advantageous to you throughout the sales process.

  1. Preparation – Any IoT marketing plan involves preparation and building customer relationships is no exception. Take the time to gather data about your prospects before connecting with them for the first time. By collecting data on qualifying leads, you gain an understanding of who they are, what they’re looking for, and what they’re interests are. Once you understand their buyer personas, you can adapt your marketing strategy to each specific prospect by appealing to their personal likes and dislikes.
  2. Welcoming Attitude – Whether you’re connecting with your prospects over the phone, in person, or online, it’s vital that they feel welcome. Be genuine and they’ll become relaxed and comfortable. Use the data you collected in the preparation phase to create a mental picture of your prospects, such as their mannerisms, demeanor, and appearance. When you do this, you’re able to greet them in a personal, warm manner. If your prospects like you, they’ll do business with you.
  3. Building Respect – Listening to your prospects’ point of view and genuinely showing that you’re interested in them and their businesses demonstrate your respect for them. It shows your audience that their needs are important and that you’re listening to what they have to say. The key is to make them feel important, avoiding small talk and connecting with them on a deep level.
  4. Nurturing Trust – Once your prospects know that you’re not only thinking about yourself, but you have their best interests in mind, it creates trust in your business. You build trust by providing answers to their questions and solutions to their problems with fast, helpful answers. They need to feel that you care about helping them achieve their goals and you’re not making promises that you can’t keep. If your prospective clients trust you, real conversations begin, breaking down the wall between you. This is a major step in the sales process because if a prospect won’t talk to you, the sale won’t happen.
  5. Lowering Resistance – After building a welcoming relationship of respect and trust, it’s time to lower your prospects’ resistance. When you build rapport, you’ve actually started to persuade your prospects to buy from you. The trusting bond you form with your prospects subtly lowers their resistance and eliminates objections to the sale.

Many sales are won or lost, depending on the relationships you form during the initial phase of IoT marketing. If you’re able to communicate with your prospective customers and take the time to understand them, it’s a lot easier to move along in the sales process.

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Digital Outreach
Marketing & PR

Employing Digital Outreach Techniques to Enhance Your IoT Marketing

A Modern, Effective Suite of Solutions

IoT marketing needs to be as cutting-edge as the tech being sold under various IoT campaigns. The Internet of Things is here to stay and is already beginning to transition into something new. Edge computing, when you boil it down, is basically a cloud computing network that uses individual IoT devices to process data.

Everybody’s got around five IoT devices at all times. If you’ve got a smartwatch, a smartphone, a Fitbit, a tablet and a laptop, then you’ve basically got five miniature computers that can be used together in concert for greater computational ability. This would be microcosmic edge computing. Imagine a corporation with an office employing hundreds of workers and literally thousands of IoT devices. They could securely operate their own private “cloud” from those devices, finding greater computational ability than built-in servers. At least, that’s conceivable.

Something so modern and potentially advantageous must necessarily be properly presented, and digital marketing offers some exceptional ways to do just that. Advantages of digital marketing that pertain to IoT include:

  • The extreme cost-effectiveness that defines digital marketing
  • Skill provision for necessary professional requirements
  • Proficiency in marketing from a team of established experts
  • A novel perspective on the market
  • Access to innovations in modern tech

Cost-Effectiveness

IoT marketing that incorporates digital techniques tends to save a lot of money. You’re able to reach people more quickly and more effectively in a more lasting way using fewer resources. This saves money, and it saves time. However, you’re going to want to keep close numbers on your outbound marketing campaigns in order to ensure that they are as effective as they need to be.

Necessary Professional Skill

In terms of maintaining accurate statistics pertaining to success, if you’re working with professional digital marketers to get the word out about your IoT campaigns, they’ll be able to help you see where something was or wasn’t successful. They’ll also be able to point you in the right direction in reference to varying channels that are more or less likely to be effective. For example, guest blogging can be a true game changer in terms of digital marketing, but it’s a game-changer that must be used properly. That is to say: you need to post your digital marketing materials on the right guest blogs.

Established Experts Who Specialize

The right digital marketing agency is likely to have experts who stratify service provision based on concentration. In other words, they’ll provide you services that they know how to provide. This is an important quality to look for. You don’t just want professionalism in digital marketing, but professionalism in that particular digital marketing that defines your business. In this case, you’re looking for those skilled at designing content around IoT directly.

Novel Perspectives

As you work with marketing professionals in the digital realm, you’ll start to see the market— and your effect on it— differently than you might have otherwise. Now, you’ll be able to see where this action or that action might not have had any effect, but this little thing in terms of social media could bring you ten new clients within a year. The effects of your online actions can be that dramatic, so you want to focus on them. Think of digital marketing professionals like the focusing lens acting as a fulcrum that turns incoherent light into coherent laser light. You can illuminate some things on your own, but with the focusing lens of digital marketing, you can hit what you’re aiming at easier.

Innovations

Modern technology is continuing to develop, and that trend won’t change. Unless the core directive of your company is centered around digital marketing, you’re going to miss things. Working with a digital marketing agency can help you remain cutting-edge in terms of outbound marketing solutions utilizing the web.

Increased ROI

IoT marketing is more likely to see success, pure and simple, should it be approached through the auspices of professional digital marketing providers. You’ll have access to innovations, new outlooks on technology and its impact, centered professionals working in teams and cost-effective outreach solutions. IoT digital marketing through professionals makes a lot of sense.

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Winning Press Release
Marketing & PR

4 Expert Tips for Writing a Winning Press Release

When your organization has some big news to share, a press release is one of the best ways to announce it to the world. However, even though a press release is meant to shine a light on your company’s achievements, taking this approach won’t get you very far.

From editors and reporters to investors and clients, everyone reading your press release wants to know why they should care about your news. Why should journalists cover it? Why should potential customers be interested in your company, products, or services?

If your press release isn’t well-written, it won’t get any attention. In some of the worst cases, it could affect your reputation, which is a major contributor to sales and, therefore, profit. As a matter of fact, according to the World Economic Forum, over 25 percent of a company’s market value can be directly related to its reputation.

So how can you make sure that your release benefits, rather than harms, your business?

Here are four tips to help you write a press release that effectively tells your story while piquing the interest of readers and building your brand.

Get to the Point, Fast

The opening paragraph of your press release is where you could win or lose readers. Will they read your full release or just gloss over it?

Your lede sentence should get to the meat and potatoes of your announcement in an impactful way. State your news, why it’s important, and why people should care about it. Many press releases make the mistake of including a brief company description in the lede sentence. For example:

COMPANY NAME, a leading provider of SERVICE, is proud to announce [NEWS]…..

This type of lede sentence is pretty dull and will likely prevent readers from going through the rest of your press release. To create a better opening, lead with one of these examples:

  • A strong statement about your news: COMPANY NAME received $XXX in funding to expand its existing IoT solution aimed at solving a long-standing problem in the manufacturing industry.

  • A significant data point: With the number of connected devices forecasted to reach over 75 billion by 2025, COMPANY NAME aims to help businesses enhance safety and security through real-time monitoring.

Now that you have your lede in place, the rest of the first paragraph in your press release should build on the opener. Include all the essential details that make your story newsworthy. For instance, if you’re announcing a partnership with another organization, provide information surrounding the goal for the partnership and the expected outcome of it.

Build Your Story

The following paragraphs after your opener should build upon the story of your announcement. The more compelling your story is, the more likely it is to receive coverage.

Use statistics or third-party research data to amplify important points. Explain how your news is impacting an industry or a community. Add quotes from key players, such as the company’s CEO, a board member, or an individual relevant to your story. For example, this could be a client who had the opportunity to use a product you’re launching and who can offer valuable insights.

This is your opportunity to create the narrative around your news. So be sure to utilize clear and captivating information that supports your story.

Be Concise

According to a study by Greentarget, 68 percent of journalists spend less than a minute reading press releases. One in three looks at releases for less than five minutes. And 53 percent said they would find it helpful for information to be presented in a bullet point format, citing press releases issued by police departments as an example of easy-to-read content.

You have a short window to get your news across, so be impeccable with your writing. Get rid of the fluff. Focus on the facts and narrative.

As a general rule, you should keep press releases to one or two pages. This will force you to condense the most salient information into a more readable document.

Don’t Be Complicated

Overly technical language can be a death sentence for a press release. In fields like IoT and high-tech, this isn’t always easy to do. But it’s absolutely necessary to make sure your press releases are easy to comprehend for the masses.

Even journalists focused on complex beats call for this because their focus is on making consumable content for their audiences.

If your release does require the use of technical verbiage to detail your story, you can opt for bullet points. This helps to highlight complicated but critical information without having to bury it in a paragraph that could get overlooked.

There are a ton of press release templates online that you could use to craft your own announcements. But writing a high-level press release that can help your company gain coverage in the media and amongst influencers takes a lot more than simply filling in blocks of text in a template.

These tips can help you write winning press releases, but if you’re seeking media coordination and distribution as well to amplify it, the team at IoT Marketing has you covered! Contact us today to learn more about our PR services.

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Marketing & PR

Successful IoT Marketing Content: Factors Beyond Word Count

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a fast-growing concept with more people and businesses looking for ways to adopt its diverse applications. Your IoT marketing strategy has the power to determine whether you or your competitor gets these new business leads. One of the factors you must consider is whether you are maintaining a good online presence and ranking highly in search engine results. Many studies have been conducted that have found a correlation between the length of the online content and search engine rankings; but to be effective, you must look further than that.


Where Current Content-Length Studies Fall Short

Although several studies have concluded that longer articles rank higher, it’s necessary to interrogate these results. It should go without saying that your potential clients care more about the content of your business blog than about the word count. These studies, although they make use of large data set, simplify the relationship between word count and rankings.

One of the factors that must be taken into consideration is the kinds of keyword categories being looked at. For example, people searching for the best restaurants in their area may not be looking for lengthy articles but a quick source of information. Different industries may show different trends when it comes to the length and type of content people are looking for. Another important fact is that search engines rank content based on a variety of factors such as SEO and relevance which may or may not be achieved better in longer content.


Maximizing Your Content

Before you post any content on your business blog or website, you must have a target audience in mind. Is your content geared towards home users of the technology, small businesses, or large commercial clients? Are they looking for quick solutions or an in-depth breakdown of IoT technology? Once you are clear about this, you can tailor your content to their needs and interests as well as to your objectives for posting content.

Your IoT marketing strategy can take different forms. Perhaps you want to generate new business leads and be the go-to website for installation or troubleshooting answers. Your readers want content that contains more useful and expert knowledge without all the filler words and fluff.

Another important aspect you should focus on, apart from the information included, is the writing style and technique. Is it too casual or too formal? Is it oversimplified or far too complex for your purposes and audience? Is your content well-written, free from errors, and easy to digest? The more readable your content, the more readers are likely to find it useful and make it to the end. You should also take advantage of keyword density recommendations so that you reach those looking for content such as yours.

When you have specific IoT marketing objectives in mind, it matters much less which rules you follow about the word count of your content. If you can produce quality content that adds value to your readers and you can make use of SEO tools, your content is more likely to be appreciated, shared, and ranked higher in search results.

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