How to Combine Social Media and B2B Marketing Automation

Divide and Conquer

When you are a B2B company with a product that has an extended buying cycle, it can be difficult to know how and when to engage with your clients through social media.

Marketing automation can ease this burden by keeping your brand in the minds of your consumers while they are between purchases. This frees up your marketing team to focus on using social media for its intended purpose: building those one-on-one personal relationships with your customers.

Neil is a great example of this two-part social plan at work. Under his management, Mack Trucks has gone from 6,000 Facebook fans to 125,000 and growing, a single video on YouTube has been viewed nearly 100,000 times in two months, and they maintain a very active Tumblr page where truckers share stories of their experiences using their product.

How he got here was by embracing the tools available to him, listening to his clients, and building a community focused on their vendors and end-users alike.

In This Episode

• How engaging with a single-item purchaser can lead to a major corporate contract
• Why getting your customers to talk to EACH OTHER using your social platforms means more business in the long run
• How being openly proactive in anticipating problems with your product leads to better customer loyalty
• Why connecting with people outside your industry is just as important as connecting internally
• Why taking the leap with CRM/SRM technology is a long, terrifying, and productive process

Quotes From This Episode

"We're not only talking to one guy in his truck, but now we're talking to a fleet of 400 trucks." —@NeilTolbert

"Through one guy's influence in social and having those conversations, it becomes a bigger business picture for the brand." —@NeilTolbert

"We want to be able to tell stories about Mack through content and making sure that content is reaching the right people at the right time." —@NeilTolbert

"Through marketing automation, it's kind of bringing them into an onboarding process with Mack." —@NeilTolbert

"It's not easy. It is a journey." —@NeilTolbert

"It's very exciting to move over to some of these more modern platforms and be able to see the results, impressions, and engagement." —@NeilTolbert

Resources

• Neil Tolbert on Twitter: @NeilTolbert
• Mack Trucks on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Tumblr
• The Horn
• Born Ready

The Big Two:

Neil Tolbert

What's your one tip for becoming a social pro?

In a word… networking. Connect with industry leaders, follow them obsessively on social media, read their books, and listen to their podcasts. It's all about connecting, listening, and learning. Never stop learning!

If you could do a Skype call with any living person, who would it be?

The one… the only… Dave Matthews. Lead singer/guitarist of one the most iconic bands of the '90s, the South African born artist ushered in an era of groove-jams that resonate to this very day. Seemingly on tour for decades, Dave Matthews Band shows sell-out regularly and seeing them live is an immersive, calming, "smoky," artistic experience found in very few places on earth. Especially if you can catch them at the Gorge and/or Red Rocks Amphitheater. Unsurprisingly given his artistic prowess, Neil would love a Skype session with Dave Matthews.

Video Credit: Dave Matthews Band VEVO

Editor's note: The editor of this week's podcast is an avid DMB fan and says "DMB4EVA!"

See you next week!

       

How to Combine Social Media and B2B Marketing Automation
from Convince and Convert Blog: Social Media Strategy and Social Media Consulting http://ift.tt/20bwSnH
via
rgh–