Any business / marketing people out there care to give me some advice?

[Levitt]

Hey all,

I'll try and keep this short. I work for a small business (around 45 or 50 employees). I don't want to get too specific, but we're a tech company working in the vending industry. In the past, the company hasn't had much in terms of Marketing organization and structure. In recent months, however, they've been trying to change that.

We don't have much social media influence (less than 100 likes on Facebook, 200ish Twitter followers, maybe 300 follow us on Linkedin), and that is something we (obviously) want to increase. With that in mind, does anyone have any ideas for social media goals (both monthly and annually) as well as real-world ideas on how to hit (or try to hit) those goals?

Additionally, I work in the marketing department and am trying to compile a list of trackable Marketing metrics to see how well we are doing as a department. It's easy to get lost in the day-to-day when working on a small team within a small company, but I'm looking for ways to allow us to grow because of our marketing efforts rather than being a resource that fellow employees can come to when they need something.

I'm sorry if this seems vague, but I'm really trying to make an impression with this company. I see them as positioned to grow extremely well in the next few years and would love to show my worth to the company in these early stages and prove to them that I am a valuable asset moving forward. I really want to be able to help determine these marketing strategies / goals (we have none at the moment) and plans for reaching goals as a way to show my value to the company.

Thanks

[Reeve]

I don't have time to respond in full right now, but good metrics include leads generated and conversion rate of those leads to opportunities, and later to business won.

More info would be nice though. Are you B2B? Service? Product? SAAS? What have you identified as your target market? What kind of market penetration do you have? What sort of intelligence do you have on your competitors? How are they positioned? Have you defined a value proposition for your company, it's products or services? Are you a sales driven organization? Is your company's product/service commoditized, or specialized?

[Blueobelisk]

You have to give out free prizes or do something interesting that makes your company stand out for social media improvements. Although it seems hard for a small company (that you can't even describe easily) to get a large following.

Lol, ways to track how your marketing is doing. I feel like that's your job and I shouldn't really be advising you on this. Maybe if we were BFFs but...

Last comment, the way you type for a forum post is too business like. It was a boring read. I look forward to seeing other comments.

[Levitt]

I don't have time to respond in full right now, but good metrics include leads generated and conversion rate of those leads to opportunities, and later to business won.

More info would be nice though. Are you B2B? Service? Product? SAAS? What have you identified as your target market? What kind of market penetration do you have? What sort of intelligence do you have on your competitors? How are they positioned? Have you defined a value proposition for your company, it's products or services? Are you a sales driven organization? Is your company's product/service commoditized, or specialized?

To answer these questions, we are a B2B company selling a product to medium+ sized businesses. We have significant market penetration and are confident about our intel on competitors. We are in the process of clarifying our value prop and our growth is driven by sales of our commoditized product.

[Shocking]

Director at a PR firm here. I don't deal in marketing full time, but I do know enough to share some insight.

The biggest issue I see with marketing in the tech world is putting the cart before the horse. Before you worry about lead generation, conversions, and business won, you have to make sure that your marketing content on your company's site utilizes best practices and is as robust as your competitors. (Best practices can be found using a Google search for anything from landing pages to testimonials to white papers and so on.) So, first, you need to optimize your presence on the Web and social media before you worry about metrics.

To do this, I would recommend finding someone who does it "well" in your industry. How does their website look? How do they structure it? How do their landing pages look? How do they structure their product guides? Do they use white papers/webinars/case studies to establish their expertise? How many pieces of thought leadership are they publishing (blog posts, contributed articles to trade publications, case studies, white papers, etc.)? What is their social media presence? How often are they updating their Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn pages? There are likely 100 things you can look at here.

You can gather all of this data (both quantitative and qualitative) and deliver a formal recommendation to your boss(es). Don't half ass it, and take the time to make sure it's thorough, accurate, and presented in an appealing fashion. Not only would it make you look intelligent and proactive, it'll help your company improve its marketing and social media presence. As I said, there's a ton of best practice information about all of this on the Web, so don't hesitate to search for it and read the recommendations of people who know what they are talking about.

[VanishingAct]

That side of business I am not the best at and your business is medium sized. I have a had a bit to do with vending. Are you making 3rd party vending equipment for grocery outlets etc? I'd assume you'd be more worried about gaining tenders from commercial areas etc than having a public image.
Can you link your business's fb here for us to see or are you shy about the business and don't want it to be known to us, while desperately looking for a way to make your business known?

For marketing stuff the guy 2 posts above hits it on the head pretty well I guess.

[Independent voter]

Necro thread from like 6 years ago. Makes you wonder why they bumped such an old thread with such an obscure subject.