Marketing Ourselves - ideas?
xanatos
Posts: 1,120
How do those of you who create custom embedded solutions for clients let people know you exist? My saving grace has been someone on the inside of a few industries who hears their needs and calls me with a "can you do ...", to which I almost always respond Yes.
But I find trying to find these folks on my own is difficult... anyone feel like sharing some marketing tips for getting your embedded systems/industrial control business some more useful attention?
I just put up my FaceBook page at: https://www.facebook.com/xanatronics and am actually paying FB to advertise my page, supposedly to targeted demographics, but other than my FB friends, the "likes" I'm getting from the paid advertising seem to have NO - NADA - NONE - relation to my desired target audience. Literally, thugs, people with posts that sound like something from the worst Maury Povitch episodes, unemployed seventeen year olds... no one who is in a position to want to engage my services. Not sure how FB decided these people are into industrial controls and automation.
Thanks for any ideas/tips/pointers,
Dave
But I find trying to find these folks on my own is difficult... anyone feel like sharing some marketing tips for getting your embedded systems/industrial control business some more useful attention?
I just put up my FaceBook page at: https://www.facebook.com/xanatronics and am actually paying FB to advertise my page, supposedly to targeted demographics, but other than my FB friends, the "likes" I'm getting from the paid advertising seem to have NO - NADA - NONE - relation to my desired target audience. Literally, thugs, people with posts that sound like something from the worst Maury Povitch episodes, unemployed seventeen year olds... no one who is in a position to want to engage my services. Not sure how FB decided these people are into industrial controls and automation.
Thanks for any ideas/tips/pointers,
Dave
Comments
A friend of my wants me to join Linkedin. I may do that. I've heard it's more about professional contacts than the color of someone's hair, etc....
Ask people you have worked with to link and let the system invite from your contacts. Personalize the message it sends out and you will get good links.
Having done that, you can search for people who are connected to people you know and request invites to get better connected. You can also post updates, which can be small ADS and thoughts you have on embedded. Service cost reduction tips are always great. .)
fb is not too useful in this context.
You might also consider a word press blog where you can post info people can use and or reference your services in forums, email, etc...
Finally, assemble a line card, which details what you do, how you do it, etc... and distribute it at various events, and or pay for ADS and listings in the local journals related to embedded.
Those are the quick thoughts I have...
Oh, one other one! Ask people you have done work for to give you a referral. Reward them with some basic consideration, such as a better rate, or nice polite thank you, such as a gift card, or maybe just nice note of thanks, depending on who they are and how you work with them. Referral business is usually great business and it can continue for some time when people have a good experience with you and know you need more.
Hey Dave - I'm in the same boat with my fledgling music effort. I've a local store that's expressed some interest, but what else to do?
Is this a version of "build a better mouse trap and the world will be a path to your door"?
I agree - but I believe it's the "showing off" that has people stumped.
How does one show off a product/service? Especially by their little o'l lonesome.
C.W.
This seems to sum up the essence of it. I have created some very successful, useful and innovative stuff for a few clients, but it doesn't have a mass-media appeal. I have a Fuel Management system that's great for small fleet owners and has been well received, and I have many large-scale petroleum bulk distribution plant tank monitor/control systems in place that interface custom user equipment to proprietary third-party systems that I was told initially couldn't be done. But I did it, on time, under budget.
But describing these things makes people's eyes glaze over quickly. It lacks the kind of flair that the "show it off, it'll do the work" statement seems to presuppose. If I had designed something with the cool factor that was initially present when the iPhone arrived on the scene, THAT I could market - people just saw it and wanted it. Fuel Management systems, and tank farm monitor/control systems do not make good party conversation
LinkedIn is next on my radar - I'm hoping to get better results there.
Referrals are really powerful. It's hard to ask people, but ones you've got a good relationship with and who you've done well by will not mind you asking. So do it. Won't feel good the first couple of times, but if you power through and just do it, you will find it's no big deal and is an expected professional protocol. Pays off.
I would rank these above all the other content marketing methods out there. They are that much more significant.
Also, you might want to read some content marketing information. Here's a great start: http://www.copyblogger.com When you visit them, know they are all about getting readers to read and more importantly, getting a conversion out of them. A conversion is some response to a basic call to action. For this stuff, it would go something like this:
1. Establish personal branding site. Blog, domain, wordpress if you want, blogger even. Tie in your social coding sites, github, sourceforge, google code, etc... That is what these sites are for, among other things.
2. Spend some time making that look good and for it to make some sense. The idea here is you can use the blog to post up your thoughts, like experiences you've had, gotchas to look out for, personal beliefs and best practices... Just start sharing in general terms who you are, how you work, why you work, etc... That's your content, which will be used for marketing. Where you can, associate it with your code, project logs, whatever you've got.
Now you know why there are so darn many emulators out there, for example. Many projects can't be shared, so it's often worth doing investment projects. They are fun, sometimes you can sell the product of them, but most importantly, they serve to advertize.
3. Sites like Copyblogger are all about optimizing that content. Good headlines, well placed calls to action, gaffe avoidance, the works. To do this well, you need to understand some of the basics of effective copy writing, because that's what you are doing when you want to advertize yourself, team, services, whatever. Basic business copy used to get the reader engaged enough to pick up on the value of your efforts is a universal skill. Add it to your tool box, or make a friend!
4. Apply that stuff and just never, ever stop. You will build a thing I like to call, "that long tail" of content. Search engines pick up on that and will tag you as an authority, which gives you a nice ranking, which leads to traffic, which gives you selling opportunities. The content leads to reading, the headline on the content leads to reading the body, the body leads to the call to action, and the structure of it all leads to a conversion.
Conversions are:
Request a quote, contact me for more information, download the sample code, use my library, call me, contact me via email, phone, whatever.
The single most important thing you want out of these kinds of efforts is to get to talk to somebody. It's the conversations that lead to work, and it's the conversations that you can use to share more difficult things, and or help to understand what they want and for them to understand they can work with you.
Another way to put this: You need to get them to visualize having you involved. If you can do that, then you have paved the way to simply ask for their business, and that's hard too, but you do it and when you do it, you will get business. Of course, when you are done, you ask for the referral too, assuming it goes well of course.
5. Expand these efforts into Linkedin and other sites, such as forums, mailing lists, trade associations, etc... You will find the labor of building your content tail also provides you with a ton of good copy you can use to make line cards, brochures, run ADS in places if you want to, and.... the bonus!
6. You will find it extremely easy to talk about this stuff in a compelling way needed to really sell who you are and most important! What they will get out of working with you.
And those things need to be:
a. you can quickly grok what is needed, requirements, ways of working, etc...
b. you deliver high value for the dollar. Be really careful about this. A low rate is the easy sell. Do it when you need the cash; otherwise, keep your rates solid and do the work to justify them. You only get 2000 or so potential billable hours, or hours to work on contracts and products. If you are billing at $50, that's probably just enough to feed you. If you are billing at $150, that's enough to fund the time needed to take other projects, work on your products, or sit and enjoy life on a weekend instead of sweating it out trying to make rent. Think about this. Hard.
c. reliability, consistency, loyalty
d. partner --they can come back to you again and again, because you know them and they know you, etc...
e. other.. but I'm out of time for this post.
24/7 focus and dedication with some realistic goals and a budget. A one man business is not a business until that man fills many roles. Most of those roles will be unfamiliar, and some of them costly.
All of my work is done under non-disclosure. I don't get into specifics. Company XYZ signed off saying that I saved them $3600 and solved problem ABC. If someone won't do that for you as a part timer, that sucks.
I have a similar problem, and great difficulty explaining that the software, hardware (prop, '165, '595, adc, etc.) and circuit designs are fairly standard and in common use everywhere. So many potential customers want you to sign contracts or NDA's that guarantee their exclusive use of what one creates..... Frustrating!