Covid-19 has changed a lot of things this past year and marketing strategies are no exception. While the hope is a return to in-person events and relative normalcy in the fall of 2021, the time period between then and now is crucial. By employing the right marketing strategy now, brands and manufacturers in the wood industry can expertly position themselves for the return of in-person events.
Setting Your Business Up For Success
In the wood industry, there are few better ways to make a connection and gain a new customer than in-person interaction. When it comes to equipment and tools most people want to be able to get their hands on them before committing to a purchase. The same can be said for other wood products.
Trade shows, artisan fairs, open houses, and home shows have traditionally proved to be an excellent method of facilitating this connection between buyers and sellers. Unfortunately, this isn’t an option available to most people with the current state of events. However, that doesn’t mean connections can’t be made and most importantly that you can’t start building a foundation for the future.
Contrary to what it feels like this pandemic won’t be around forever. As mentioned, with the way things are going in-person events could start to resume in some shape or form by this fall. So here are the best strategies for brands who want to be well prepared for the return of in-person events and who want to keep growing and solidifying their lead base in the meantime.
The Magic of the Facebook Pixel & Retargeting
In 2020 a massive trend with consumers was researching companies online and organic web traffic has boomed. Unfortunately, someone visiting your website once doesn’t lead to any type of conversion. There are two sides of this coin that are instrumental for brand positioning and securing new leads, the first side is the Facebook Pixel.
If you do not have your Facebook Pixel enabled, that is the first step. The FB Pixel is a piece of code that offers insights and analytics into your website’s visitors. The overall goal of this option is to promote audience growth and optimization for ad campaigns. All you need to do is go to your Ads Manager and enable it.
The second part is using this information, and more to understand your ideal customer. There are a few different ways this can be done but not having a brand persona is one of the biggest mistakes companies make and results in a massive waste of money. There is no way to please everyone, but knowing the people who have a problem you can solve and who understand your brand, mission, and product, is better than trying to please those who don’t.
Don’t waste money or time attracting or targeting leads that will not convert. Instead, use this time of digital connection to find out more about your ideal customer. If you know how they think, what they want, and how they communicate, when in-person events return you can have the most interest you’ve ever had from the right people by using the information you learn now.
Ethical Growth Hacking for Wood Businesses
The most important thing to remember when setting up any marketing strategy is that the customer is king. Your goal should be to know what their problems are, how you solve them and why they should choose you. It could be as simple as reaching out to your customers over the last year and asking these three simple questions:
- What was the moment you knew you needed our product or service?
- Why did you choose this product?
- Why Us?
The mistake that most businesses make on the marketing front is that they try and define their brand. They don’t adapt the idea they have created for it. In reality, your brand isn’t the color scheme you use, it’s not even your story or your mission – it is how you are perceived by your customers.
You can’t tell customers what they want, that doesn’t work. You need to listen to your customers, find out what they want and what they like, and then make that happen.
If you can create buyer personas, you’re able to build rapport, connection, and trust with your current leads and customers and have a great foundation for new ones before they ever see your website or your products. This approach is what turns traffic into conversions.
The Method in Action
Suppose you sell equipment. You used to have your 5-7 shows and events that you showed at yearly. In addition, you had dealers that had their own shows and events. If you know that customer A is a small to medium size business with a certain revenue level and the buyer is the owner of a certain age and demographic. You can target them on social media.
Now if you know that your other customer B is a hobbyist who already has a day job, exploring customer B more you know that their problems are going to be different than customer A. While customer A might be more concerned with durability and efficiency, customer B would likely be more interested in cost and value.
The end result is the same, both customers end up buying the different types of equipment and they need to be communicated with in different ways.
Without buyer persona’s you might not even realize customer A and B have different needs, pain points and concerns. In the traditional world with in person events, you know that, but the same can happen online.
How Does this Translate for In-Person Events?
So, you’ve set up your pixel, you’re collecting information about your customers, you’re putting in the effort, creating brand persona’s and you’re converting more organic leads, what’s next?
Now, you can take your buyer personas and use them to market your in-person events with way more efficiency. Not only should this method have increased your leads and expanded your mailing list, but you also now have profiles that represent millions of other people who might not have even heard of your brand yet. These profiles (buyer personas) will allow you to create Ads that resonate with these people immediately.
When in-person events return all you need to do is use this foundation to promote your event. The leads you have been engaging with online will be qualified leads eager to see products in person, and the research you’ve done and information you have collected while nurturing those leads will allow you to target brand new actionable leads with a high likelihood to convert them to customers as they resemble the satisfied customers you already have.
Next Steps:
Acres of Timber is a marketing and media platform for the lumber, sawmill, and woodworking industry. We’ve worked with wood brands like Wood-Mizer, Granberg International, iDRY Kilns, Logosol, and LogOx on their sales and marketing initiatives. We’re also the hosts of the Woodpreneur Podcast and Community and have a network of over 150K followers online.
If you’d like to have a complimentary Brand Audit or Discovery Call, you can book a time here:
https://booking.acresoftimber.com/bookingpage
Or you can email: steve@acreoftimber.com