Social Media Sniper School - HOORAH!

“One Shot. One Kill.”

That’s the motto for the US Army Sniper School.

What does that have to do with social media marketing and/or foodservice beverages? Read on. I’ll tell you.

“How can you incorporate social media into a foodservice manufacturing company’s marketing plan? We are B2B, not B2C?”

I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard that question (or some variation thereof) from one of my peers.

Wait, I do. But that’s only because my circle of influence is pretty small. The foodservice beverage industry is enormous from a revenue perspective, but pretty small from a company/personnel perspective. I think that’s one of the reasons I love this industry…it has a “small-community” feel about it. But I digress.

I follow quite a few blog authors. My RSS feed looks like a “who’s who” of social media. The content shared on these blogs has been instrumental in my understanding of social media marketing.

If you haven’t done so already, check out the infinite blogs out there and sign up for a few of the good ones. You can start with this one if you’d like. (Any of my foodservice peeps that don’t know what a blog is, or how to subscribe to one, have no fear. Send me an email, or call me on the phone…I’ll walk you thru the process. We non-natives need to look out for one another.)

Generally the blogs offer suggestions on how to increase your twitter following, or talk about the steps you should take to build an effective social media campaign. But this week, whether planned or not, a common thread has been to focus on “content, content, content.” The message is: nobody wants to write just for the sake of writing. And surely as readers you don’t want to read something that isn’t a 10/10 in content.

So, today, I am posting a real-life example of how my company has started to use social media for lead generation.

Yes, this information is going public, which means any of our competitors can use the information to compete against us. But, I’m confident in our employees. I’m confident in our strategic partners. And, I’m confident in the uniqueness of our products. Besides, I have always liked competition.

One of the social media sites I have used for some time is Yelp! When I’m at industry events (foodservice industry, not social media) talking about the benefits of social media, one of the first apps I show is Yelp! To truly “wow” my fellow digital immigrants, I show them the monocle widget within the app.

I can’t quite describe the looks and/or reactions when one of my industry peers holds my phone and walks around in a circle, looking at the interactive “head’s up display” which shows all the restaurants in a 360degree fashion. It never fails to bring a smile to my face.

But Yelp! is more than just an app to find nearby restaurants, bars, nightclubs, etc. For me, it is an awesome lead generation system.

How, you ask?

One of our target markets is the catering industry. We have a line of iced tea concentrates that are perfect for the catering industry. And, we spend a small fortune on traditional marketing to make sure the industry knows about our products. But, traditional marketing is more of a “shot gun” approach. You throw it out there and hope you hit something.

Yelp! allows us to be marketing “snipers”.

What do I mean? Go to the yelp! website. At the top is their search header. Search for “caterer” and plug in a city “Austin, TX”.

What happens when you hit the enter key?

I’ll save you the effort and tell you. You get 196 entries, all complete with addresses and telephone numbers. Do you want to know a secret? These contact numbers are more up-to-date than any list we have purchased.

You can filter your search by type of foodservice operator too. Have a product you want to pitch to sports bars in Columbus, OH? There are 184 listed.

If you are a sales manager for a foodservice distributor or manufacturer, and I told you I’ve got a sales tool that will filter out the specific type of operator you desired, gave you the operator’s contact information, was capable of mapping the locations and providing you directions to the location, and would constantly update itself so your information was never stale, how much would you be willing to pay me?

How much more effective can your sales organization become if it can achieve the same level of concentrated focus as the US Army sniper? One targeted shot. One confirmed hit.

Social media IS changing the way our company does business. We can embrace the change and learn how to make it work for us, or we can ignore the change and hope to stay in business.

I’ve made my decision. How about you?