By Brian Everett, Chief Executive Officer of TMSA. Part 1 of a 4-part series on Highlights from the 2016 TMSA Connections Events.
Nearly 40 marketing and sales professionals attended two TMSA Connections events last week in Atlanta and Chicago. These events are intended to give executives an overview of key industry metrics as I report on the 2016 TMSA Sales & Marketing Metrics Study - and ultimately we then go into what we call "speed learning" discussion groups.
The insights, intelligence, and expertise from TMSA members and their marketing peers are amazing - as witnessed during these discussion groups. Here are just a few observations I heard on marketing trends and practices over the course of the last several months in the transportation and logistics industry:
- When it comes to content marketing, a big challenge can be to make sure it's relevant, compelling, and timely. And when possible, tell the story in a unique way. Many are seeing thought leadership opportunities through expanded use of targeted webinars, more self-publishing through blogs and other digital channels, and collaborating with media partners beyond print and online advertising buys.
- More budget is being invested in social marketing and social selling, with expanded opportunities in SEO, repurposing content in various channels, and marketing automation. Marking practitioners also are working on improving channel segmentation, which means knowing what to post where.
- As digital marketing strategies continue to morph, there are new opportunities created through such tactics as retargeting, geo-fencing, live stream video, and podcasts. Some are seeing a decline in the use of direct e-mail marketing, due to tougher corporate spam filters and oversaturation in email use. After all, it's easy for the recipients of messages to hit the "delete button" or unsubscribe.
- CRM continues to be top-of-mind for transportation and logistics marketers. But the big challenges they face are selecting the right platform that fits their corporate culture and use, lack of focus on training once a CRM is implemented, balancing data needs between Sales and Marketing, managing all the data (and consistent input of data). In addition, it can be a challenge to accurately tie the lead back to the campaign or event. But don't get frustrated - continue to do it whenever you can!
More next week on What's Hot In Sales from these Connections events.