Hi Dori,
I agree with the End User #1 and John's comments. I'm especially glad that John brought up his LinkedIn report as well. I was going to reference it but he beat me to the punch.
I'll share some thoughts on a plan for some outside the box channels which will get you results without breaking the bank. One thing to keep in mind is there isn't a magic bullet in marketing. Marketing is about have a carefully thought out, strategic plan and properly implementing it.
Keep in mind that you want to position yourself as the leader in perimeter security solutions bringing awareness to Integrators, end users, distributors and dealers. One of the ways to do this is to push out content that positions your group as the subject matter expert. This can be done via:
- Content articles distributed on your blog, e-newsletter and social platforms
- Webinars
- Case Studies / Whitepapers
- Live events - ie trade shows, etc.
John had brought up 2 channels, LinkedIn and Remarketing. I completely agree with those 2 channels. Keep in mind there are many Remarketing platforms. Based on our experience we would recommend Google and Facebook as the channels (yes, I did say Facebook). For LinkedIn you'll want to post consistently in your company feed and to maximize your reach make sure you and your team like, comment and/or share to increase the impressions and engagement. In addition, there are advertising opportunities which John's article shares some more details on. I encourage you to read it.
E-Blasts / E-Newsletters - I'll presume you are already doing this but if not be sure to get started on this ASAP. Needless to say all of us reading this post all get too many emails daily but it still works and is one of the most effective forms of advertising today.
One last channel I'll focus on is Facebook. I just spoke about this last Tuesday at ISC West and received great feedback from my talk. A common misconception is that Facebook is just for B2C or residential end users. That is not the case and Facebook has kicked LinkedIn's butt from the advertising targeting options perspective. You are able to target just about anyone on Facebook including C level executives. Best yet, you can spend as little as $10-$20 on a single campaign for testing. Heck, you can even generate a lead on Facebook without the user having to click through to your Website. Additionally, you can upload your database of prospects/customers and the contacts that are associated with a Facebook profile can be a custom audience that can be marketed to. We see results with concurrent awareness and direct response campaigns running concurrently.
On a side note I've been told by LinkedIn corporate that there will be some new advertising products to better compete with Facebook later this year.
The list goes on but I believe this should be a good start ;)
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
David