TED Magazine - February 2017

THERE IS NO QUESTION THAT digital and social media are, and will continue to be, an in- creasingly important part of marketing for all industries— and ours is no exception. This month we spoke with Paul Suarez, digital marketing manager for Cadet, and Alexandra Roy, digital marketing analyst for LEDVANCE, to get their insights on innovative ways to make the most of digital and social me- dia efforts. While digital and social media may not be the first choice of medium for everyone, they offer unique op- portunities to reach tar- geted segments with very specific information. “The electrical distributor industry is changing at an increasingly fast rate, and there are more and more ways the community is getting its news to stay on top of those changes,” said Roy. “While some may prefer one method over another—print vs. on- line, for example—many like the flexi- bility of having options. “This is especially true for the next generation of the industry who are more tech savvy and never without their mobile devices,” she added. “This is why it is important to utilize new communications methods like digital and social media. Otherwise, firms risk missing out on opportuni- ties to competitors that are more forward thinking.” Suarez said his company uses digital and social me- dia to reach specific buyer personas. “Social media gives us a good opportu- nity to look a little more at people’s interest and location,” he said. “On Facebook, for example, we’ll target a specific audience and tailor the message to it. There are a lot of people on social media. We look at people and drill down to target those whom we think reflect our audience.” He added that social and digital marketing are especially useful when there are limited re- sources for a campaign or a company is looking to test something new. “It’s a low-risk investment to try new things. It’s part of our culture to try new things and if they don’t work that’s fine—but figure out what was learned from it.” Different platforms offer not only access to different audiences, but also varied ways to engage and interact with them. “For us, we see more en- gagement with our B2B community on Twitter, so we focus our relevant messaging there; on Facebook and
Instagram, it is more B2C focused,” Roy said. As an example, she noted that on Twitter, the company tends to do more messaging about new SYLVANIA products, interact with distributor partners, and share indus- try news. “We use You Tube for both B2B and B2C audiences. For our trade market, we share training videos on You Tube that talk about the benefits of new products to help distributors sell them to their customers, and show how they can be easily installed,” she added.
Digital/Traditional Interaction As a mature industry, most compa- nies have well-established philoso- phies and plans for their traditional marketing campaigns. Because digital and social media offer such varied options for new ways to reach audi- ences, it is not always obvious how they can support traditional market- ing or be integrated into it. There is no one-size-fits-all solution: Each company and each marketing team will need to assess its own needs and determine if, how, and where digital platforms can be used effectively. “We see digital and social media both as being an important part of marketing campaigns and as able to be effective separately,” said Roy. She noted that in a recent launch, the company used related full-page print ads and online banner ads in concert to promote the product in cohesive messaging across platforms. “We made sure we were also com- municating on the sylvania.com home page and on social media with a dedi- cated hashtag,” she noted. “This way, whether distributors were reading their print magazine, going to tED mag.com, or checking their Twitter feed, they knew we had an exciting new product line to help them drive their business.” Suarez said that right now at Cadet, digital campaigns stand alone from traditional media, but he sees them moving toward a more inte-
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